‘My mum and my sister have them,’ shrugged Chuck. ‘They are colourful woven things, based on Peruvian peasant coats, I think – look, you can see it here.’
‘Very interesting, but how does that help us?’ asked Ruth.
‘Well, I got in touch with a society photographer. We occasionally bump into each other when I have to cover gallery openings and things.’ Chuck pulled a face. ‘Anyway, he had loads more photographs of Lana. Look at this one,’ he said, holding up a glossy print. ‘It’s Lana at some shop launch earlier this year. See her bag? It’s definitely a Diaz, and it looks like the same colour and design as the one this woman’s carrying at the hotel.’
‘Trouble is, there’s got to be thousands of women with the same bag.’
Chuck shook his head. ‘Uh-uh. Not this one. Nicholas Diaz is a pretty big name now from dressing women on the red carpet, but his studio is still very small and exclusive. I’d bet there’re only fifty of these bags in London right now.’
Ruth must have shown her scepticism, because Chuck turned back to the hotel lobby footage.
‘Okay, now look at the woman’s blouse. It’s Gucci, last season. See the gold pattern around the neck?’
Ruth looked at him incredulously.
‘Are you sure you haven’t got anything to tell me, Chuck?’ she laughed.
He held up his hands. ‘My sister’s an intern at Vogue. I emailed it over to her and she identified it immediately. And look . . .’ He held up another society photograph. ‘See? This is Lana at some charity garden party. The same pattern, the same Gucci blouse.’
Ruth looked from one picture to the other, narrowing her eyes.
‘It is her,’ she whispered. ‘It bloody is!’ She threw her arms around Chuck and kissed him on the cheek.
‘Hey!’ he laughed. ‘I thought we weren’t doing that any more?’
‘Chuck, you’re a genius,’ she said, stuffing the pictures into her bag.
‘Yeah, well just remember that when you’re writing my references,’ he smiled.
He turned his chair as Ruth grabbed her things and headed for the door.
‘Hey, where are you rushing off to?’
‘To see Inspector Fox,’ she said, then pointed at him. ‘Oh, and cancel all your plans for tonight – and tomorrow, too. We’ve got a story to write.’
43
It didn’t look like home. Sophie peered out the window as Lana’s jet banked, dipping its wings towards the dark North Sea. There were droplets of rain on the glass and the clouds they had just descended through were grey-black. Beneath her the lights of Inverness airport glittered in the dusk, like stars reflected from the sky. To her right was the vast rippling plain of the sea, cut off by the lights of Inverness, and beyond, the brooding sketched outline of the Highlands.
She tensed as there was a thump underneath her feet and Josh squeezed her hand.
‘Just the undercarriage going down,’ said Lana in the seat opposite. ‘Don’t be so jumpy.’
That’s the pot calling the kettle black, thought Sophie. Lana had been edgy and tense ever since they had met her at Miami airport, snapping at the slightest thing and chewing on her once immaculate nails. They had considered going to Scotland without her, but they had a deal with her to find the money together, and besides, she had the private jet to get them there.
Sophie had expected Lana to be excited and grateful when they had met at the Gulfstream and Josh had told her he had cracked the code, but she had been quite the opposite, making sniping remarks about ‘Daddy’s lucky girl’ and her ‘childish treasure map’. Sophie would have confronted her about it, but she was terrified that Lana might simply leave her and Josh on the tarmac. After all, she knew the map co-ordinates, all she had to do was go and pick up the loot, but Josh pre-empted any plan to maroon them by pointing out that as the clue had been given to Sophie, there was always a chance that the money – or whatever was waiting in Scotland – would have to be collected by her too.
So they had made the eight-hour journey from M
iami to Inverness in near silence, each of them brooding on what they might find at the end of their long quest. Sophie guessed that Lana had probably been unsettled by the idea that the Russians were also on the trail: if Josh could work out that Ben Grear was a mountain, so potentially could Sergei. Perhaps she was picturing Asner’s millions slipping from her grasp; that could make anyone snappy.
Sophie sat back in her seat as the jet bumped on to the runway, turning to watch the grey rain-lashed airport buildings as they taxied towards them.
‘Not quite Florida, eh?’ said Josh, looking past her out of the window. ‘This is what we call summer in Scotland, I’m afraid.’
‘Let’s just find this damn mountain and get this over with,’ said Lana, picking up her overnight bag. One of the many things they had neglected to discuss on the flight over was what happened if they did find the money at the foot of Ben Grear. Was Lana planning on just taking her investment and disappearing back to her house in London? Sophie doubted that very much; in fact she was sure that Josh’s assessment of the situation was correct: Lana intended to take the lot. How she would do that, Sophie hadn’t the foggiest, but as Josh had pointed out, they would have to deal with that when it happened. Right now, Sophie was only concerned with getting through customs.
Numbly, she followed Lana and Josh as they walked across the wet tarmac into the terminal building. Aside from being allowed to go down the mostly empty ‘fast track’ lane, this time they had to follow the same security procedures as everyone else. Sophie glanced at a clock on the wall as she handed her passport to the border guard: almost eight o’clock in the evening UK time. Would she be in a jail cell talking to Inspector Ian Fox by nine? she wondered, then realised she actually wouldn’t mind. She was tired: tired of running, tired of lying, tired of trying to work out what everyone was thinking. All she wanted to do was curl up and sleep for a month, and at this moment, a hard bench and a thin blanket would be just fine.