Second Shot

Harrington had the grace to color. “Oh, quite so, old chap,” he murmured. “But Simone is having some difficulty adjusting to the fact that, from the day she bought that winning ticket, her life was never going to be quite the same again. Do you know, she arrived at our office this morning having actually come into town, with the child, on the Tube? Didn’t want to have to try to park in the middle of London, she said.” He shook his head, as though Simone had suggested walking naked through Trafalgar Square.

“I told her she should have hired a car and driver to take her door-to-door and she looked absolutely baffled,” the banker went on. “It simply doesn’t cross her mind that she can afford to do these things. Nor does it occur to her that, by not doing them, she’s putting both herself and her daughter at risk from every crackpot and kidnapper out there-quite apart from the situation with her former, er, boyfriend.”

“It does, as you so rightly point out, make them prime targets-Ella especially,” Sean agreed. “How serious a threat do you consider her ex?”

“Well, if you’d asked me that a few weeks ago, I would have said he was a minor irritation, but now …” The banker broke off with an eloquent shrug. “One of the first things Simone did with her money was hire various private investigation agencies to try and trace her estranged father. One of them now believes they have a promising lead, and ever since that report came in, this Matt chap just seems to have become completely unreasonable.” Harrington paused, frowning. “Perhaps he believes a reunion between Simone and her father will spoil his own chances of a reconciliation with her,” he added with an almost imperceptible curl of his lip. “She’d have to be quite mad to take him back, of course.”

“What’s the story with Simone’s father?” I asked.

Harrington’s head came up in surprise. Not at the question, but that I’d been the one who’d put it. Even on such short acquaintance, I’d realized that Harrington didn’t speak to anyone he considered at servant level unless he had to, and even then he avoided eye contact. With that in mind I’d let Sean do most of the talking so far. From the expression on the banker’s face, he clearly hadn’t expected me to wade in at this late stage. His eyes swiveled warily in my direction.

Sean flashed me a lazy smile, one that would have made my knees buckle if I hadn’t already been sitting down, and raised an eyebrow to Harrington, as if to repeat the question.

Harrington coughed. “Naturally, one doesn’t wish to be indiscreet, but… well, as I understand it, Simone’s mother was an American, who came over here and married an Englishman, Greg Lucas-an army chap, so I understand. They divorced when Simone was not much more than a baby, and mother and child went back to the States — Chicago, I believe it was-but her father rather dropped off the map, as it were.”

He broke off as the wine waiter glided up to the table and smoothly topped up his glass, finishing the bottle. Harrington ignored him and I wondered briefly what kind of pivotal decisions were made in the afternoons in the world of high finance after boozy lunches just like this one.

“I assume Kerse is Simone’s mother’s name?” I said when the waiter had departed.

Harrington nodded. “She went back to it after the divorce. Anyway, Simone’s mother died a few years ago. There were no siblings, her grand-parents on both sides are long gone and Simone herself is currently expending considerable effort-not to mention her now not insubstantial resources — on attempting to locate this Lucas chap.” He stopped to take a sip of his wine.

“Unsuccessfully?”

“Hm.” Harrington dabbed fastidiously at his mouth with his napkin. “So far, but then, as I mentioned, a couple of weeks ago one of the firms she’s using in Boston thought they’d made some progress and she’s been talking about going over there ever since.”

“Boston,” I repeated blankly, glancing at Sean and finding no reassurance there. “As in Massachusetts, not Lincolnshire?”

Harrington frowned. “Naturally,” he said with a flicker of irritation. “The rumor was that Simone’s father had followed his ex-wife to the USA, so of course that’s where she started looking.” He paused, eyes darting from one of us to the other and registering the sudden undercurrents. “Urn, one knows America is supposed to be a civilized country and all that, but bearing in mind Simone’s somewhat unique circumstances, and given the trouble with her ex, we’d be happier if she had some kind of security consultant along with her when she goes over there.” He nodded to Sean but didn’t shift his gaze away from me. “Mr. Meyer suggested you’d be just the lady for the job, as it were,” he finished with a hearty cheerfulness that didn’t quite succeed in masking his natural aversion to female equality in the workplace.