The Hogarth Conspiracy by Alex Connor Page A

would she?”
    It was Mrs. Fleet’s turn to look surprised. “Gone where?”
    â€œTo New York to meet up with Bernie Freeland. She was planning …” Liza felt herself turning pale. Jesus, why hadn’t she kept her mouth shut? She realized from the look on her employer’s face, her hard, narrowed eyes, that Mrs. Fleet hadn’t known about the assignation. “Maybe I got it wrong.”
    â€œ Annette arranged to see Bernie Freeland? ”
    Liza was stammering, trying to cover up.
    â€œI could have gotten the dates wrong.” Liza now mistook the woman’s fixed expression for anger. “Annette always gets her dates wrong,” she babbled.
    â€œShut up!” Mrs. Fleet said, rising to her feet and looking down into the street below. At once the mastiff rose and padded over to her, sitting at her feet.
    At any other time the fact that Annette Dvorski had deceived her would have incensed Mrs. Fleet, but not this time. If the stupid girl had arranged a secret meeting with Bernie Freeland, she was going to get more than she bargained for. If she was on her way to New York, she would soon find out that her rendezvous was with a corpse.
    â€œYou stay here at Park Street, Liza. Do you understand?”
    The girl nodded. “I can work.”
    Mrs. Fleet considered this awhile, then said, “No, not for the moment.” Perhaps it was better to keep Liza Frith under wraps, away from people and questions. “Just stay indoors.”
    â€œYou think I’m in danger?”
    â€œI think you’re worried, and you’re no good to me in that state.”
    â€œDo the police know about the flight on Bernie Freeland’s jet?”
    â€œNo,” Mrs. Fleet replied, her tone warning. “And you must not say anything.”
    â€œBut—”
    â€œThe flight is not to be mentioned. Forget it; it has nothing to do with Marian’s death. She died in the airport hotel. On her own. I don’t want you muddying the water.”
    When Liza left the room, Mrs. Fleet stared down at Park Street, at winter trees bleak and bad-tempered against a blustering sky; early London rain had left the roads greasy. From her vantage point, she could see over the London rooftops toward the horizon, where watercolor clouds skittled after one another. Her mind ran over the facts. One of her working girls had been murdered; another was missing, apparently on her way across the Atlantic. And a third, without knowing even half the truth of her situation, was hiding at Park Street.
    Mrs. Fleet had grown up in the toughest area of Liverpool, accustomed to violence and intimidation. By hard graft and ruthlessness she had risen to the top of her game, and she liked her status. Not respectable but pretty nearly untouchable. No bailiffs coming to her door, no pimps either, no whores running with sores and willing to blow two men for the price of a drink. It took determination to get away from Scotland Road, a place where there were pubs on every corner and a hooker in every doorway.
    But she’d done it. Mrs. Fleet—once Charlene O’Dywer—had shed her accent, her name, and her morals to get to Park Street. To become rich and safe. And now a fucking painting was endangering everything. She had enjoyed her extended interlude of luxury and safety, but … She smiled to herself wryly, almost resigned. Perhaps she had always known it was too good to last. Perhaps she had even expected that one day trouble would come to her expensive door.
    But she was buggered if she was going to give in without a fight.

Sixteen

    W ALKING UP THE NARROW STAIRWELL OF THE TOWNHOUSE, V ICTOR rang the bell marked “ Thomas Harcourt” and waited to hear the lock being slid to open the door. He knew from past experience that Thomas—Tully to his friends—already would have checked on his caller through the peephole, but he had the grace to smile effusively as though surprised