Private Lives

45



‘So who is this Deena Washington exactly?’ said Helen with irritation, flicking through the notes her private investigator had prepared. She looked up at Mark Carrington at the wheel of his SUV as they drove towards the Hamptons on the Sunrise Highway. Helen was tired, jet-lagged and annoyed that she’d had to come to New York at all: wasn’t that why she employed PIs like Mark? Carrington was a forty-something former cop who had left the force to join Travis Sim, the prestigious global risk management firm. If you wanted anything found – a person, a computer file, a missing aeroplane – Travis Sim, and more specifically Mark Carrington, could find it for you. He was the best in the business. Which was why Helen was particularly annoyed with him. Previously, his work for her had been flawless: background screening checks, profiles on witnesses, finding evidence that had conveniently disappeared into the bowels of the US justice system, he’d done it all with speedy efficiency. But this time, he had failed.

By Mark’s account, he had hit a brick wall trying to find something, anything that linked a member of the Stateside staff to Jonathon Balon.

‘Everyone’s clammed up,’ he had told her over the phone, ‘They all seem terrified of this guy Spencer Reed. No one will talk.’

Helen couldn’t sit back any longer. They only had a few days to go until the end of the trial and she couldn’t risk – wouldn’t even consider the possibility of – losing the case. The whole reputation of Donovan Pierce rested on it, and she hadn’t worked so long and hard to let that happen. So she had left court on Friday and flown straight to JFK, determined that she would return to London on Monday with a piece of information that would blow Stateside’s case out of the water.

But now, sitting in Mark’s untidy car, watching his stubby fingers drumming on the wheel as he hummed along to Springsteen’s ‘Born to Run’, she wasn’t at all confident that was going to happen. She reached out and snapped off the radio.

‘If you couldn’t get any of the others to talk, why do you think this girl’s going to tell anything?’

‘Deena doesn’t work in magazines any more. She’s gone into TV,’ explained Mark, turning the radio back on.

The car threaded along the highway, towards Long Island’s South Fork. The traffic was slow; clogged by wealthy New Yorkers escaping the city humidity for the seaside towns. Helen had visited the area many times to attend parties or stay at the homes of powerful clients, but she could never see the appeal of spending a whole summer cooped up with so many snooty bankers, all playing the same game of one-upmanship: who’s got the biggest house, yacht, bank balance. She herself was much more interested in making money than showing it off.

‘Is this it?’ she asked as they pulled off the main road and into the town of Bridgehampton. It was almost six o’clock and the sun was slinking towards the horizon, sending out flashes of orange between the large houses as they passed. Mark turned into a small private road, more sand than blacktop, and stopped the car in front of a dove-grey cottage, set back from the sands. Little more than a shack, it was still a shack with a view that Helen guessed rented at more than $30,000 a summer.

Mark and Helen got out and followed a path leading around the house. They could hear music and laughter coming from the side facing the pale-almond sands of the beach. As they turned the corner, they could see a small group: young men in chinos and blue shirts, girls in bikinis and sarongs, all standing around a huge barbecue pit, drinking wine.

‘Deena’s the redhead on the tiki seat,’ said Mark.

Seeing the strangers, the girl stood up and walked over. She was petite, with delicate features and freckles across an upturned nose.

‘Deena Washington?’ said Helen.

‘That’s me,’ she said, looking instantly defensive.

‘Helen Pierce,’ she said, putting out her hand. ‘I’m an attorney with Donovan Pierce, a legal firm in London.’

Deena looked from Helen to Mark and back again.

‘The Balon case,’ she said. A statement, not a question. She turned and waved at her friends, calling, ‘I’ll just be a minute, save me a burger, okay?’

Raising his eyebrows, Mark excused himself and, slipping her shoes off, Helen followed Deena on to the sand.

‘So I take it you’re not surprised to see me?’ she asked.

‘Spencer has told every member of staff, past and present, not to speak about the case, so yes, I was kinda thinking you’d be in touch.’

‘Why’s that?’

Deena gave a low laugh. ‘Because that Jonathon Balon feature was my idea.’

The waves were roaring on to the shore and a cool breeze whipped Deena’s burnished hair across her face.

‘I’m not sure it’s worth my while to talk to you.’

Helen knew instantly what she was getting at. Everything was about money out here. She smiled.

‘Do you want me to have to call you as a witness? I could easily force you to give testimony.’

Deena stopped and faced her.

‘In a foreign trial?’ she said. ‘With a week to go? I don’t think so.’

Helen was surprised at the girl’s knowledge. She was a hustler, a deal-maker.

‘Well I’m sure we can come to some agreement,’ she said.

‘It depends what you’re offering me.’

‘It depends what you’re telling me,’ replied Helen.

Deena turned to look out to sea.

‘The magazine got this new commissioning editor,’ she began. ‘Joanne Green. Beautiful, ambitious, but she was an out-oftowner, had no connections at all in the city.’

She glanced at Helen.

‘Look, she got the job I wanted, but I figured she was better as a friend than an enemy, so I took her under my wing. We went to parties, and I introduced her to people. I thought that way I’d get more of my stories in the magazine. But I was wrong – at first, anyway.’

She paused.

‘Jo wasn’t a real decision-maker at the magazine; that was Elizabeth Krantz, the features editor. I’d never got on with Lizzie; I think she resented that I got invited to more parties than she did, so she took great delight in knocking back my features ideas again and again and again. Until . . .’

‘Until what?’ asked Helen.

‘Until Jo started sleeping with Spencer.’

Helen felt her eyes widen, and Deena smiled. ‘Suddenly it was easy for Jo to overrule Lizzie about editorial. Suddenly I was getting my stuff in the magazine.’

‘And this was when you pitched the idea of the Jonathon Balon story?’

Deena nodded.

‘My boyfriend at the time told me about this billionaire Brit and his property empire, which was built on his connections with London gangsters. It sounded a great story – it is a great story. So I pitched it to Jo, but she said it wasn’t international enough.’

‘Who was your boyfriend?’ asked Helen, her excitement growing. Finally Mark had hit gold, she could feel it.

‘He was from London. A photographer. He hated Balon for some reason and really wanted the story to run; some revenge deal, I guess.’

‘So how did you get around Jo?’

Deena smirked.

‘My boyfriend was moving out of his apartment in the Village. Great place, rent-controlled, and he was tight with the landlord. Jo said she’d have a word with Spencer and make the feature happen if my boyfriend made sure his apartment was turned over to her.’

Helen tried to keep her face neutral, but inside she was punching the air. This was exactly the breakthrough she had been hoping for.

‘Why didn’t you write the story?’

‘Because I didn’t know enough about Balon. My boyfriend told Jo to use one of his old friends from London, Ted Francis.’

Francis was a named co-defendant, along with the editor and Steinhoff publishing.

‘My boyfriend phoned Ted and said he had got him some work at Stateside magazine. Every serious journalist wants to get commissioned by Stateside. But the deal was that the story had to expose Balon.’

‘Your boyfriend,’ Helen said. ‘I need his name.’

Deena gave a laugh.

‘I know you do, but as I said, this has to be worth my while.’ Helen’s lips tightened. Usually she would dispense with little chancers like Deena Washington, but she knew she was running out of time.

‘What do you want, Deena?’

‘The summer rental on this place isn’t cheap,’ she said, inclining her head back towards the house.

Helen took a breath of the sharp, salty air. She knew that Deena would be sharing the cost with some of the others hanging out around the barbie.

‘Okay, what’s your split of the rent? Five thousand dollars?’

Deena shook her head.

‘Five thousand bucks for pissing off the most powerful editor in America? Come on.’

‘But you’re in TV now, Deena,’ said Helen. ‘What do you care about Spencer?’

‘Spencer has friends in high places everywhere. I’m pretty sure he can screw me over with one phone call if he chooses. No, I want the whole rental. Forty thousand bucks.’

Helen swallowed. ‘I’ll give you fifteen,’ she said.

Deena shook her head. ‘My guess is that you want to win this case a whole heap. Otherwise why else are you out here in the middle of a trial? I want the lot or you get zip.’

‘Fine,’ said Helen, smarting. ‘My colleague will speak to you when we get back to the house.’ She always avoided getting involved with deals of this nature; it was simply good practice. Besides, Mark Carrington was an expert in diverting whatever funds were needed through a dozen accounts in as many countries so that should anyone wish to trace the cash, it would never come back to her. She turned her steely gaze on to the girl. ‘The name of your boyfriend, Deena.’

She hesitated for a moment, then shrugged.

‘Dominic Bradley,’ she said. ‘Works out of the Eleven Street Studios downtown, fashion stuff mostly, but it’s August and everyone in fashion goes on holiday, so my guess is he’ll be back in London to visit his folks.’

Helen smiled as they walked back towards the house.

‘Out of interest, why did you just tell me all that, when Spencer had told everyone to keep quiet?’ asked Helen.

‘Spencer’s a jerk, that’s why,’ said Deena with feeling. ‘He promotes yes-men and whoever will suck his cock. He pushed Lizzie out and made Jo head of features, and with Spencer to open doors for her, Jo didn’t need me any more. The moment that happened, Spencer called me into his office and said he was letting me go.’ She turned to Helen, her cheeks pink. ‘You screw that prick,’ she said. ‘He deserves a fall.’

Helen smiled and nodded. The girl clearly was an operator, but in reality she was naive. If Stateside lost the case, it would have little or no impact on Spencer Reed personally. So he’d angered Jonathon Balon, but Balon was a big fish in the small pool of London, and Spencer moved in higher circles.

‘Don’t you worry,’ she said, slipping her heels back on. ‘We’ll screw him all right.’

But first she had to find herself a photographer.