Sweet Revenge Page 14

  “In Hobday’s office.” Now his voice shook, as well. “You helped that criminal get this murderer off.”

  “No one got off,” Victoria reminded him as calmly as possible. “There wasn’t enough evidence to support—”

  “Hang the evidence.” One slippered foot hit the carpet with a thud. “My grandson was murdered.” Icy blue-green eyes bored into Torbel’s face. “My flesh and blood, my only legitimate male progeny, gone. You killed him. You and that piece of scum, Lenny Street.”

  “But that makes no sense,” Victoria said. “What reason would Torbel have had for killing your grandson?”

  “Because Robbie changed his mind about joining up with his band of crooks, that’s why.”

  Torbel’s eyes held steady on the old man’s. “And you think I’d kill someone over that?”

  The ends of Augustus’s white hair quivered. He continued to clutch the rifle as his right hand came up to massage his thin chest. “He knew things about your so-called agency, didn’t he, Torbel? Things you weren’t about to let him take away that night. So when he told you he wanted no part of your miserable operation, you ordered Street to stab him in the back.”

  Torbel sounded resigned. “Whatever, old man. You’ll take your belief to the grave no matter what I say.”

  Augustus’s eyes blazed. “Say why you’re here,” he barked. “What are you—both—” his glare included Victoria “—doing in my house, in my daughter’s room?”

  “They’re looking for something that will tell them what Peacock was going to reveal before he was killed.”

  Zoe…Victoria brought her head around.

  She stood on the threshold, more defensive than insolent despite her cool tone. “Peacock knew or discovered something, didn’t he, Grandfather? Maybe you know what it was, maybe you don’t, but whatever the case, I think it’s high time the truth came out.”

  His face mottled with rage, Augustus blustered, “You’re one to speak of truth. Your very existence is a disgrace to me, to all of us.”

  “‘All of us’ being you and Clover. There’s no one else left now, is there?” To Victoria and Torbel, she explained. “I saw his bedroom light go on, then the light in the hall. I could see where he was heading, so I thought I’d come and help you out.”

  The rifle wobbled. “You can help yourselves out, the lot of you, before I call Inspector Fox.”

  Torbel’s eyes never left the old man’s face. “Why Fox?” he challenged quietly. “He has no jurisdiction here.”

  “What’s the difference? Inspector Craddock, then.”

  “The difference,” Torbel replied, “is that your first thought was to call Fox. Why? Because he owes you favors?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. He owes me nothing.”

  “He owes someone,” Victoria inserted. “A number of charges against him were dropped for no apparent reason. Who better to affect such matters than a high-court judge.”

  “Are you accusing me of a criminal act, girl? Do you have that much audacity? You, who broke into my home with this—” he flung a furious hand at Torbel “—this…person?”

  Having two other people there bolstered her courage, despite the waving gun. “Yes,” she said. “I am, and I do.”

  “Answer the question, Augustus,” Torbel said levelly. “Did you have a hand in getting the charges against Fox dropped?”

  “That’s none of your bloody business,” Augustus snapped.

  “He did,” Zoe exclaimed softly. She sounded surprised and unbelieving. “You really did, you two-faced old thing. Why on earth did you do it?”

  The old man merely glowered at her.

  “Do you know his family?” she pressed. “His father, maybe?” Her tone soured. “Or is it his mother you know? You always did like women, didn’t you? Poor Grandma Blanche. I’ve no doubt you humiliated her more than a few times over the years. What names do I remember? Gladys, Miranda, Blodwyn, Fiona, Rachel. And there were more, weren’t there? Many more than I ever heard about. And you had the nerve to pick on Duffy for cheating on Sophie. She was no saint, and you know it. It’s in the blood, Augustus. Lying, cheating hypocrites, that’s what you—what we—are. What a legacy to leave. Maybe it’s just as well that Robbie died. Before he could be turned into another you.”

  Augustus’s expression grew so ugly that it made Victoria wince. “Get out,” he snarled, and would have shouldered the rifle if Torbel hadn’t stopped him. He made a crabby sound of defeat. “All of you. Get out now, and don’t come back.”

  “Not until we find out what it was that Peacock was going to tell us,” Torbel said with no visible trace of emotion.

  The old man’s lips quivered with poorly suppressed anger. “I don’t know,” he said stiffly. “I hardly knew the man.”

  “You knew the man,” Zoe scoffed. “So did Sophie. She also knew Fox and Craddock, if I’m not mistaken, for years before she died. Be honest, Augustus. Cops and solicitors were Sophie’s favorite boy toys, and she just loved to play.”

  “Shut up!” White-faced, Augustus could barely choke the command out.

  Sadly Zoe shook her head. “What a pathetic family.”

  Recovering somewhat, Augustus began to hobble away, using the rifle as a cane. “I’m going to call Fox—Craddock. You have five minutes to disappear.”

  Zoe stabbed an accusing finger in his wake. “If the devil had children, he’d be one of them. Did you find anything?”

  “Only a skeleton in the closet,” Victoria told her.

  “One of many, it seems,” Torbel added, reaching for the light switch. “Come on, let’s get out of here before we’re arrested.”

  “All that, and we didn’t find a thing,” Victoria sighed.

  “Yes, we did.” Torbel ushered her into the corridor behind Zoe. “We found out that Sophie knew both Peacock and Fox for years before her death, and that old Goggy’s done a number of favors for Fox.”

  “That’s not much of a cache, Torbel.”

  “No, but this might be.” Removing a small leather-bound book from his waistband, he thrust it between her fingers.

  Victoria frowned. “It looks like a diary.”

  “It is,” Torbel said with an expressive arch of his brows. “Sophie Hollyburn’s diary.”

  AS FAR AS VICTORIA could determine, Sophie had been involved with half the London police force, a number of lawyers and a handful of doctors. She’d also been a whimsical woman, because details in her diary were sketchy at best.

  She pored over the first half of the book in Zoe’s flat. The entries were made the way a person would think, jumping from subject to subject with no connecting sentences. After five hours of struggling to make sense of the thing, she closed the cover and stuck it under the sofa cushion. Maybe Torbel would have better luck when he got here.

  If he got here, she amended, stretching her arms over her head and glancing at her watch. A frown crossed her lips when she saw that it was after 4:00 p.m. He should have arrived an hour ago.

  With a frustrated grunt, she reached for the phone. She’d promised Mr. Woodbury that she would check in at teatime. She would have preferred to do it personally; however, when she’d explained her current problems to the firm’s partners, Mr. Bock had insisted that she remain safely hidden away in Stepney. No point endangering herself needlessly, he’d said, but what he’d really meant was that he didn’t want her endangering him.

  Pompous old buzzard. He only cared about himself. Rather like Judge Hollyburn, she thought with tolerant contempt. Old Augustus tossed the word justice around as if he’d invented it. If hypocrisy were a middle name, it would be his. What she hadn’t deduced for herself in that area, she’d discovered from reading Sophie’s muddled diary.

  Not that Sophie’d been any better as far as marital fidelity went, but she’d taken pains to be discreet. According to her, her father had been positively brazen about his affairs.

  Oddly to Victoria’s mind, Sophie had spared scarcely a word for her girls. She recalle
d a few references to Robbie—“a chip off the old block” was what Sophie had called him—but Zoe, Clover and their long-dead brother Joey hadn’t rated a single word.

  After checking in with Mr. Woodbury, Victoria decided to take a walk. Her da would be selling like crazy on a perfect market day like this. She would drop by and see him in Whitechapel.

  Ron and Ivy were huddled in a booth at Gooseberries when she passed through in her oldest pair of cutoffs and a dusty rose tank top. They had spread out a large sheet of paper on the table between them. Ron was making marks on it. The moment he spotted her, he gathered up the paper and stuffed it onto the seat beside him. His eyes, wary and untrusting, trailed her across the room and through the door.

  Had he killed Lenny Street? Victoria wondered. Her blood chilled at the prospect. Did he want Torbel dead, as well, so that he could take over the agency?

  No, that didn’t make sense, or if it did, Ron’s plan had no connection to the death threats she and Torbel had been receiving. The Scotsman had no reason to want her dead. Unless, of course, he had some tie to Robbie that she didn’t know about. That would give him a reason.

  The streets bustled with activity. The air was warm and smelled of all things wonderful in the heart of the old city.

  London had charm, she had to admit, even the poorer areas like this one. Her Tower Bridge flat was lovely, but it didn’t have the color or character of Zoe’s rooms. That wasn’t the real problem, though. Her whole life lately lacked color. Visiting her da always improved her spirits, but his livelihood was his barrow. Hers lay in the realm of the legal system.

  “I love being a lawyer,” she stated out loud. “I do.” Several heads turned, but Victoria ignored the curious stares. She wanted…something. She wasn’t sure what, but she had an uneasy feeling it involved the Rag Man. And that thought, more than any of the others, brought a shiver of trepidation to her skin.

  She needed to get her mind onto a less disturbing topic. Robbie Hollyburn’s trial, for instance. What did she remember of it? She summoned up plenty of tidbits but had no chance to voice them until she located her father in the Puddleby Market.

  “I’ve been back, Da. I read the transcripts of the trial. Apparently Augustus Hollyburn’s gardener testified that Robbie was in a hurry the night he died. He said Robbie ran over one of the lilac bushes in his rush to get to the docks.”

  Her da eyed her shrewdly. “Anxious to join up with your Rag Man, was he?”

  “Not according to Augustus…and he’s not my Rag Man. The judge insists that Robbie was planning to tell Torbel he’d changed his mind. That’s nothing new, though. Now that I think about it, I’m sure I saw the same statement made by Augustus in the transcript of the trial. Still, Da, Torbel wouldn’t have killed Robbie over that. It might have been different if Robbie’d pulled a knife on him, but even then I can’t see Torbel stabbing anyone in the back. He’s got too much pride. Or honor. There must be another answer, something we missed back then and are still missing now.”

  Her da rearranged heads of red cabbage. “The person after you doesn’t seem to think so.”

  “He’s crazy, Da…Or she.”

  “You’re not sure?”

  “Not yet. All we ever see are gloved hands and shapeless bodies. And the message on the answering machine was deliberately distorted.”

  “Who do you think it is, then?”

  “I honestly don’t know. Clover Hollyburn’s a cold fish, but she’s not making any attempt to hide her animosity. You’d think whoever was after us would do a better job of acting.” She paused. “Da, do you know a man called Boots?”

  “No.” His eyes sparkled. “Another new friend of yours?”

  “Well…yes, I’d say so. But I can’t find him. I asked around, and so did Torbel. No one’s seen him since the day before yesterday. What’s even more peculiar, there was an old woman in his spot today outside Gooseberries. I know the spot doesn’t actually belong to Boots, but I’ve never seen anyone else there. And she wasn’t a friendly woman, either. When I asked her about Boots, she mumbled something rude and clumped off in her big brown shoes. I wonder if Torbel…?” She shook the idea away. “No, he’d have told me if he’d found him.”

  “Does this Boots know your Rag Man well?”

  “I think so. And stop calling him my Rag Man, Da. He’s not my type.”

  Her da snorted. “Rubbish, lass. He sounds exactly your type. Those wishy-washy legal twits you’ve dated in the past are just so much putty. You need something harder to handle.”

  Surprised and a little stung by an opinion he’d never expressed before, Victoria ventured a quiet “Are you saying that I’m domineering?”

  “Assertive,” her da corrected, still shifting his wares. The twinkle returned to his eyes. “You got your ma in you, all right. She would have her way when we were together. But except for that, and her black hair and her pretty blue eyes, you got a lot more of me in you than you do her. Those eyes of yours cut, though, lass. Good for your work—not always good when it comes to dealing with regular people.”

  “You haven’t seen Torbel’s eyes,” she murmured, feeling oddly on edge. Why was the skin on the back of her neck prickling? “He could melt a glacier at fifty yards. What are you looking at, Da?”

  “Nothing.” He smiled broadly at her. “He’s got a sharp stare, eh?”

  “Deadly.”

  “I reckon he uses it to advantage.” His smile widened. “Does it work on you?”

  “Of course not.” When his gaze flicked past her again, she frowned, twisting her head around. “What is it, Da? What’s back—?” She closed her eyes at the sight of his lean body and long curling hair. “Damn,” she whispered fervently. No wonder her skin had been tingling.

  At least he wasn’t grinning like her father. He wasn’t smiling at all. In fact, she’d have called his expression downright forbidding if it hadn’t been for the spark of irritation deep in his eyes.

  Unaccustomed to feeling awkward, she managed a hurried, “Da, this is Torbel. Torbel, my da.”

  “Alfred Summers.” Her father stuck out a hand covered with a half-fingered marketer’s glove. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  “And you, Mr. Summers.”

  The usual banter ensued, with her da insisting that Torbel call him Alfred and asking him about his agency.

  “Why are you here?” Victoria finally broke in. She’d be damned if she’d let those blue-green eyes of his put her on the defensive.

  His dark brows rose in something akin to a challenge. “You were supposed to wait for me at Zoe’s flat.”

  “I did wait. You said teatime. That hour came and went, so I did the same.”

  “Glib, ain’t she?” her da said with a wink. “Gets her tongue from me an’ all.”

  Torbel’s gaze remained on her face. “I wondered about that.”

  “Did you follow me here?” Victoria asked, not liking the idea. She hadn’t noticed a thing, and she’d been watching.

  “At a distance. It wasn’t difficult. You kept to the main streets.”

  “With a homicidal lunatic after me, I’d be crazy to walk down dark alleys, wouldn’t I?”

  She hadn’t meant to say that. Her father’s face went from amused to appalled. “You got a lunatic on your tail?”

  “No, Da, not really—”

  “Yes, really,” Torbel interrupted.

  Her da wrapped his fingers around a carrot and squeezed. “What’s hed one?”

  “Not much,” Victoria lied.

  “He killed a cop,” Torbel contradicted. “There’s no point, Victoria. It’s all over the papers. He’ll find out about it sooner or later.”

  Before she could protest further, her da scuttled off and snatched up a neighbor’s newspaper. Nose buried in the small print, he read, “Stepney Police Officer, Sergeant Robert Peacock, Dies In Junkyard Explosion.” His head bobbed up. “How do you know this is the same loony what’s after you?”

  Victoria shot Torbel
a nasty glare. “It’s a long story, Da. Sergeant Peacock said he had some information for us about Robbie Hollyburn’s mother. When we got there—well, the rest is right in front of you. That’s it. That’s all we know. Lenny Street is dead, and so is Sergeant Peacock. Boots is missing, Judge Hollyburn’s out for blood, though whether literally or not we’re not sure. Zoe’s been disowned, Clover’s a mystery and Inspector Fox is a—a…”

  “Prat,” Torbel supplied. “One whose police record was cleaned up by Augustus Hollyburn.”

  “And who knew Sophie Hollyburn when she was alive,” Victoria said. She did not add Ron’s name to the list for the simple reason that she had no proof he was doing anything untoward, only a suspicion, and she wasn’t about to spread tales based on something as nebulous as that.

  “Sounds like you got yourselves a fine mess,” her da observed sagely. He zoned in on a surprisingly good photo. “Is that your Peacock? He looks a dead tired man to me, big brown eyes an’ all. What’s that on his jaw? A birthmark shaped like a kidney bean? Reminds me of the cows I used to milk in Yorkshire.” One finger stabbed the newspaper column. “It says here that the bombing was a drive-by in a stolen sports car. No fingerprints on the vehicle.”

  “Really?” Victoria took the paper from him. “I didn’t hear that. When did they find the car?”

  “This morning,” Torbel told her. He glanced past her shoulder as he spoke. “That’s why I was so late. I’ve been down at the station house ever since.”

  Victoria studied his unrevealing features. Why on earth was she so drawn to this man? Why, even now, in front of her da and all the other market vendors, did she long to pull his mouth and hands onto her.

  She took a deep breath instead and asked, “What are you looking at, Torbel?”

  “Someone in black lurking around the fruit barrow. He’s gone now.” A meaningful brow arched in her direction. “Or she.”

  Victoria managed not to react. Her da had enough to worry about. “Maybe we should go,” she murmured, rubbing a suddenly damp palm on her bare leg. Leaning over, she kissed Alfred’s weathered cheek. “I’ll come and see you again soon, Da.”