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Today was her last full day in New York, and she had to make it count. Tomorrow night she’d be in a plane to London, to attend Teddy’s sentencing. She only had twenty-four hours to get through the last four names on her list.
Sally Hamlin had given her a bunch of papers relating to the time when Billy’s business had gone into free fall. Not only was this when Milo Bates had disappeared, but it was also the time when “the voice” had first made itself heard in Billy’s life. This was the crucial period, the start of it all. Searching through the files, Alexia had carefully pulled out the names of all the creditors, clients, and suppliers who’d had dealings with Hamlin Motors during that time. It was a long shot. But there was a chance one of them might remember something significant.
Jeff Wilkes ran a hauling company in Queens that had been one of Billy’s biggest and most consistent customers until things started to go wrong. A hugely fat man in his midfifties who smelled of garlic and body odor and had sweat patches the size of dinner plates under each arm, Jeff Wilkes seemed neither pleased nor impressed to be meeting Britain’s former home secretary.
“Look, lady, I don’t care who you are,” he informed Alexia rudely, scratching his balls under the Formica desk of his filthy office above his truck garage. “I don’t discuss my business dealings with nobody except my accountant and my bank manager. And then only if I can’t help it.”
“Billy Hamlin was a friend of yours,” Alexia said frostily. “Both he and his daughter were found murdered. If you had information that could help solve those crimes, wouldn’t you want to share it?”
“With the cops, maybe. Not with some woman I’ve never seen before in my life. I don’t know you.”
“I’ve told you who I am.”
Jeff Wilkes shrugged. “So? I don’t have information, okay? I don’t know shit about no murders. And Billy Hamlin was a business contact, an acquaintance. We weren’t friends.”
Clearly appealing to Wilkes’s better nature was going to get her nowhere. Alexia reverted to a trick she’d learned in politics—repeating the question again and again and again until the other person broke down and answered despite themselves.
“Why did you terminate your contract with Hamlin’s?”
“Look, I told you—”
“Why did you cut Billy off?”
“Are you deaf?”
“Was the quality of his work unsatisfactory?”
“No. It had nothing to do with that.”
“Did the two of you have a falling-out?”
“No! I told you already. We weren’t friends. You know, I got a business to run here.”
“Why did you terminate your contract with Hamlin’s?”
Within a minute, Jeff Wilkes had caved. Alexia thought: He wouldn’t last a day in the House of Commons.
“I got squeezed, okay?” Jeff blurted out. “In my business, it happens. The Mafia, the protection rackets. You don’t mess with that if you’re a hauling company in New York City.”
“Someone pressured you to stop doing business with Billy? Is that what you’re saying?”
“I’m not saying anything.”
“Were you threatened?”
“I’m not naming names, I’m not making accusations, okay? I’m just a small businessman doing the best I can.”
“But your relationship with Billy Hamlin became a problem?”
“It came to my attention,” the fat man said, “that it would be better for my business if Hamlin’s business didn’t work on my trucks no more. Okay? I didn’t owe the guy anything. I paid him in full and on time fo
r all the work he did. But”—he opened his arms wide—“we went our separate ways. That’s it. End of story.”
It wasn’t the end of the story, of course. But it was as much as Alexia was going to get out of the odious Jeff Wilkes today.
Her next stop was an automotive-parts distributor, also in Queens. To her surprise, this time the boss was a woman.
“Yeah, I remember Billy Hamlin. Sure. Kind of a quirky guy. But I liked him.”
