Glass Houses Read online

  “Naturally,” Vanni said, grinning. “Poor old Ryan. And we never had a chance to finish figuring out if he’s really a cop gone bad.”

  This was one of Vanni’s favorite theories. He was convinced Ryan Hill—and maybe his sinuous little partner, Fats Lemon—were on the take.

  Aiden shook his head and took the mouse away. He opened the next piece of mail from Olivia. When had he started calling this stranger Olivia?

  “You really think I should keep quiet about all this and bring the photos and negatives to America for safekeeping? This seems extreme, but I want to agree. I wonder why you’re so against my idea of approaching Mark. You must be reacting as an FBI agent. And you’re nervous, too, aren’t you? You think whoever’s doing this could be anyone—including Mark. That wouldn’t make any sense, but you aren’t to know that.”

  Vanni snorted. He gestured as only he could. “Will you look at that? He thinks he’s more irresistible as a fed than NYPD. Schmuck. Maybe my ambition’s changed. Why help him retire altogether? Why not get him busted down to the beat?”

  “Mama,” Aiden said, “wouldn’t approve of plotting, in particular plotting for no more honorable reason than you don’t like a guy.”

  “Schmuck.” Vanni muttered.

  “Read on,” Aiden told him.

  “Sam, maybe I’m overreacting and letting my imagination run away with me, but what if I did come to you and someone frightful followed me on the plane? Wouldn’t that be terribly dangerous? They could hold up the plane, hijack it or something.”

  “The lady’s a dramatist,” Vanni said.

  Aiden said, “The lady’s scared. She ought to be. Whatever game friend Ryan’s playing—if he really means he wants her and her photos here—there’s something very wrong with the way it smells.”

  “Read the next one,” Vanni said, bracing himself on the desk.

  “Yeah. Only twenty minutes between the two.”

  “All right, I’ll come if you think it’s best to put distance between me and London. Oh, dear, I really am quite frightened now, I must say. We’ve never met, yet I feel I know you better than I’ve ever known any man. I don’t know what I should do without you. I’m alone here. Mummy and Daddy wouldn’t understand, and Daddy would blunder about making such an embarrassing fuss.

  “I suppose I could book up and let you know when I’ll be arriving. Thank goodness for credit cards. I never thought I’d say that. I hope we’ll know each other when we meet—if we meet. We should have found a way to exchange photographs. I have a scanner, of course. I know you don’t, but you could have used someone else’s.”

  Aiden looked not only at Ryan’s scanner, but at the digital camera on the desk beside the keyboard. Explanation needed— soon.

  “I’m very ordinary looking,” Olivia continued. “Brown hair and eyes, sturdy, average height and, according to Penny, a sartorial disaster. Sorry about that. I’ll be wearing a hat. I almost always wear a hat. And I know it’s corny, but I’ll put a flower on my lapel. You could do that, too. We may as well try to lighten things up a bit.”

  That was the last post.

  “Batty,” Vanni said Aiden agreed. “Deranged.”

  “They could be perfect for each other.”

  “He could be planning to rip her off.”

  “What’s she got to rip off?” Vanni asked. “She doesn’t even have the price of an airline ticket.”

  “It’s an expensive ticket.”

  “Not that expensive.”

  The bell announcing incoming mail rang on Ryan’s computer. OliviaFitz’s name showed up together with, “That man just rang up again. He asked if I’d thought about the kill fee and said he was on his way to talk to me in person. They obviously don’t think I suspect anything. I tried to get Penny, but she’s not at home and I can’t find her. I’m getting out of here. I’ll call the airport, then I’ll give you the flight number. See you in New York.”

  Two

  Stress made Olivia hungry. In moments of boredom, anxiety, or when the weather got really gray—which was often in fair London Town—she found herself in the kitchen, in front of the open fridge door with no memory of how she got there. But middle-of-the-night raids on Hampstead’s fragrant twenty-four-hour bakery on Heath Street spelled out-of-control emotional upheaval.

  She was having one of those out-of-control upheavals tonight, or this morning. It was very early on a clear morning and Olivia FitzDurham, she who was considered slightly wacky but generally cautious, was standing before the display cases in GIVE IN AND DIE HAPPY, prepared to do just that.

  The aromas were incredible. Fresh bread, Banbury cakes, Chelsea buns, custard-filled donuts that still sizzled, macaroons and Madeira cake. And those trays of marzipan fancies, the heaps of tender Battenberg slices. She wanted one of each, but most of all she wanted fresh, dissolve-in-the-mouth raspberry jelly rolls coated with coconut shavings and powdered sugar. A fresh batch would soon slide onto a wire rack and cloud the glass case with titillating steam through which she would play peekaboo with the objects of her desire.

  With a sigh, she closed her eyes. Then she drew in a deep breath and heard the only other customer in the shop, a man who had just entered, echo that sigh. From the corner of her eye she saw him pick up a French loaf. Light and flaky on the outside, it would be so soft and warm on the inside.

  With his teeth, he tore off one end. Olivia watched his reflection in the mirror at the back of a wall case, watched him chew rhythmically—and look at her. Even behind his dark glasses, in profile, she saw how he eyed her slowly from head to foot while steadily turning a mouthful of light bread back into dough.

  She averted her face, only to be confronted by herself, and a not very appealing picture she made. Her red woolen boater sat foolishly on the back of her head and did nothing to tame the ringlet-like curls her hair sprang into when there was even a hint of moisture in the air. For the rest, her old tan raincoat belted haphazardly around her middle was a disgrace.

  This was all nutty. The truth was that she knew any thought of hopping on a plane to New York to meet a man who had accidentally fallen over her on the Internet—only two weeks earlier—was out of the question. But her rapidly withering hopes for adventure made her want to do it anyway. One of her occasional silly tendencies to be superstitious caused her to fear this could be her last chance at something even remotely daring, and she didn’t want to miss it.

  She had to miss it.

  The man chewed with his mouth open. Olivia couldn’t stop herself from glancing at him once more—and finding him staring at her yet again. He made no attempt to smile. His black trilby was pulled well down over his eyes, throwing the top half of his thin face into shadow except for the glint of shoplights on his opaque lenses. A wobbly bag of empty skin stretched from beneath his chin to be gathered in by a starched white shirt collar. His precisely knotted tie was green with some sort of subdued, repeated pattern, and he wore the type of suit favored by most men who worked in the City: black with vertical white stripes. Streaky-bacon suits, some called them.

  He kept on staring, and she wasn’t about to be the first to drop her gaze. Ridiculous fellow. Old enough to be her father but staring at her in the most inappropriate manner. Threatening in a way.

  A squeak distracted her, but she couldn’t tell where it came from.

  Embarrassment had made her put off letting Sam know she’d come to her senses. She should already have posted to say she wouldn’t be going to New York, but he’d think her such an appalling ninny. Thus the jelly rolls. A couple of plump Chelsea buns filled with succulent raisins, currants and sultanas, wound together with cinnamon sauce and topped with sweet white frosting that dripped down the sides would be good with her morning tea, and they’d keep her mind off what she really wanted to do—but really mustn’t.

  Another squeak.

  An assistant returned to the shop with cream-filled meringue pillows. “Won’t be long with the jelly rollies, luv,” he said to Olivia. Of t
he other customer, he asked, “Ready, are you, guv?”

  The man shook his head but didn’t answer. The boy behind the counter shrugged and returned to the kitchens.

  Olivia grew increasingly uncomfortable. Her stomach ached vaguely and jumped unpleasantly. Several more squeaks raised her suspicion that she was hearing some sort of rodent, or rodents. The sight of the man dropping crumbs into his coat pockets, then patting them as something moved inside, convinced and sickened her.

  When she tore her attention from the squirming pockets she was confronted with the chilling vision of the stranger smiling at her, showing crowded, yellowing teeth while he chewed on. What was left of the loaf he held in both hands and squeezed as if he were strangling a very tiny neck.

  “Jelly rollies,” the returning assistant sang out. “ ’Arf a dozen luverly hot, sticky raspberry rollies with extra coconut and sugar just for you, luv.” He put the cakes into a crackly white bag, handed it to Olivia, took her money and made change.

  She thanked him and went toward the door.

  “And you, guv? Ready now, are you?”

  That earned him another silent shake of the head before the man waited for Olivia to pass and turned to observe her when she stepped outside. She went to the curb and waited for a milk dray to pass before crossing the street. In a window ahead she soon saw the rodent fancier take up position on the curb she’d just left.

  He was going to follow her.

  Fighting against a painful pulsing in her throat, Olivia looked around. No police were in sight, not that she could rush up to an officer and accuse someone of… of what? He’d have to do something—like attack her—before she could ask for help.

  It was early enough for the night chill to linger. The skin on her face felt tight and icy. The sweat on her back felt icy, too, and she breathed with only the tops of her lungs.

  Oh, she was overreacting because of the breakin. She started walking toward home.

  He followed. Others passed, but she could isolate the sound of his small, polished shoes clapping on the pavement.

  If she went straight home, he’d find out where she lived. It was dark along tiny Back Lane. The street lights would come on again for a while, but not for an hour or so.

  Ahead, a steady stream of early workers converged on the tube station. These were the ones who went into downtown London before most people awoke.

  Olivia arrived at the station, turned right abruptly, and made for the platforms deep in the bowels of the black earth.

  Crammed into a grinding, rattling lift, she held her breath while they groaned downward to one of London’s deepest stations. Men in bowler hats silently clutched copies of the London Times, and suited women joined in the game of “if I don’t meet anyone’s eyes, I must be alone.” Teenaged girls chattered, displaying pierced tongues to match their pierced eyebrows and noses.

  A bumpy stop and the doors opened to disgorge the latest stream of travelers. The thunderously echoing run broke out. On the underground everyone who could, ran. Olivia walked past garish ads pasted to the walls. The London theater scene hawked its rich offerings on tattered posters.

  Olivia decided she’d take a Jubilee line train, go one stop to Finchley Road, and double back, making sure she wasn’t still being followed.

  Commuters swarmed along the platform to find spaces to wait. Across the pit, where electrified rails spat and popped, they stared at more billboards, these huge against grimy cream tiles that covered the walls.

  An announcer’s voice wa-wa’d, harmonica-like, over the speaker system and not a word was intelligible. Olivia dived behind a pair of passengers and peered between them at those who approached. So far there was no sign of the man with the bread. She glanced repeatedly at the hanging electric signboard where upcoming trains were posted. The next one was no good. It arrived, sucked fresh victims into its too bright compartments, and shot away again.

  Olivia backed farther along the platform, catching up a discarded copy of The Mirror from a bench as she went. She opened the paper, surreptitiously poked a hole through it and held it before her face. The platform was filling up again, this time with a bigger crowd, but the man wasn’t to be seen.

  This wasn’t the type of excitement she craved. She wanted to go to the States because she wanted to meet Sam. The thought made her ears burn. That wasn’t the only reason. There was the London Style mixup, but the authorities here could have taken care of it. Possibly.

  Olivia FitzDurham’s behavior was totally out of character. The thought made her smile. Who would ever have thought it, Olivia doing something wildly unlike her usual ordinary self— make that her ordinary, boring and prissy self.

  Well, others might think her prissy, but they weren’t inside her head where the wild dreams lived, were they?

  Even though she’d never seen Sam, she had a mental picture of him and she liked what she saw there. She’d actually had erotic thoughts about a man who was only words on a computer screen.

  Thoughts and feelings, and she’d enjoyed them.

  There, that was total honesty, and it would be very difficult to go to the local police now. Mark would be disappointed she hadn’t gone directly to him, too, which she also couldn’t bring herself to do. If she’d intended to report the incident, it should have been done at once. Not long after the fact.

  She craved just one outlandish adventure. There had been too few of them in her life, none that she particularly recalled, in fact.

  Was it so much to ask? That she go to meet a man who aroused her without a look or touch?

  She turned a page and shuffled the paper to clear her peephole. That aberration hadn’t followed her after all. Muscles in her shoulders relaxed and she breathed more evenly.

  The loudspeaker blared again. More babble. Movement drew her attention to the tracks. Several feet below the level of the platform, they shone dully in their soot-caked trough. Olivia could smell the soot, and she could see rats scurrying back and forth. They must survive down there because they were too light to electrocute themselves on the rails.

  Olivia averted her eyes to the tattered hole in her paper and gritted her teeth. There he was, that horrible man, and he was stuffing crisps into his mouth from one of several bags he held in the crook of an arm.

  He finished a bag and let it fall to the platform, then tore open a new supply. With the precision of a machine, his hand rose and fell from his lips. He stood perilously close to the edge and divided his attention between the darting rodents and studying the people who came through the entrance to the platform and marched toward him. Repeatedly, he stood on tiptoe to get a better view. Looking for her, she was sure.

  Olivia fidgeted. One hand went to her throat, but the newspaper folded away from her face and she grabbed it again. Her train was posted now. Another empty crisp bag, the last one, fluttered to the ground. The man made a motion with one hand. He only watched the passengers now, but he dropped crumbs from his clenched right fist onto the tracks.

  He was feeding the rats.

  Sickened, Olivia made herself look again. His back shook while he continued to toss crumbs. Laughter. He was deeply entertained by the rats’ antics. A small, thin person in a black trilby with the brim turned down. His head and body, in a streaky-bacon suit, seemed all one.

  The tracks vibrated, heralding the approach of the next train. Olivia pressed to the wall, gauging her next move. If he got on, she wouldn’t. And she’d hope he didn’t see her before the train left.

  One glance toward the exit. Another glance back. He’d gone. She couldn’t see him. Where was he? Olivia looked behind her, cringing, expecting to see him there.

  The sound of the train grew louder, but it wasn’t loud enough to drown out a great gust of noise, a swelling gasp with a chorus of spine-tingling screams and hysterical yells.

  Alarms sounded, then the wail of a warning siren. The train’s brakes howled on the tracks and the thing grated and sparked to a stop halfway along the platform. The doors remai
ned closed, and faces pressed against the insides of the windows.

  One man’s voice roared above the rest, “Is she dead?”

  Olivia’s legs wobbled. Her insides jumped and she became aware of tears streaming down her face. With her back still against the wall, she slid along behind the straining mass of onlookers. Looking at what?

  Faces turned this way and that. Mouths opened and closed, but Olivia couldn’t seem to hear what they said. Someone nearby said, “They think she was pushed.”

  “Nah,” another said, sneering in an attempt to sound tough, “she’ll ’ave tripped. I don’t understand why some of ’em gets so close to the edge.”

  “Excuse me,” Olivia whispered, “please excuse me.”

  No one heard.

  She made her shaky way toward the exit. Some poor woman had been in a terrible accident. Just standing there, waiting for a train to take her to work, she’d been hurled… Olivia dropped the paper and put her hands over her ears. She couldn’t do anything to help.

  Stumbling, she carried on until a new spectacle tossed another wave of disturbance into the crowd. Medics, firemen and policemen dashed into view, ordering people aside as they came.

  Olivia reached the clearing made by the arriving professionals. She tried not to look at the object of their burst of activity, but failed.

  Close to the edge of the platform lay a woman. Her ashen face was turned toward Olivia and blood ran in garish streamers over her skin, but her eyes were slightly open and her lips moved.

  A great leap of hope and gratitude all but sent Olivia to her knees.

  She stood still, drove her hands repeatedly into her pockets and smiled through tears.

  “If he hadn’t been so quick, she’d have been down there.” A kneeling woman pointed to the tracks, then indicated a man in jeans and a sweatshirt who looked as white as the patient. “She was already going over the edge when he grabbed her. He could have been pulled in with her, but he didn’t think about himself.”

  Olivia made another search for the man from the bakery, but he’d obviously slipped away. Probably because the possibility of meeting the law scared him off. Coward.