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The woman hadn’t heard about Billy’s murder, or his daughter’s, and was shocked when Alexia told her the details. “My God. I did read something about that body being washed up. But I didn’t put two and two together with the name. To be honest with you, I never knew Billy had a daughter. That’s terrible.”
Her reasons for ceasing to do business with Hamlin’s were more prosaic than Jeff Wilkes’s. “Those were tough times in the automotive sector generally. A lot of firms were going under. Truth is, we were lucky enough to get a huge contract with one of the big boys, De Sallis. We dropped ninety percent of our smaller clients after that. We were stretched to the limit. I do remember hearing rumors about Hamlin’s, though, now that you mention it.”
“Oh?” Alexia’s ears pricked up.
“Some people were saying Billy and Milo’d been blacklisted. I don’t know whether they had trouble with one of the gangs, or it was something else. But everything those guys touched seemed to turn to shit, if you’ll pardon my French.”
Alexia knew the feeling. Her last year in politics had felt the same.
“Do you know who took over supplying Hamlin’s, after you quit?”
The woman scrawled down a name. “You think any of this has a bearing on him and his kid getting killed?”
“Probably not,” said Alexia. “I’ll see myself out.”
Alexia made four more stops that day, three to former clients and one to another supplier. The stories were the same everywhere. It was either, We were threatened. We got calls warning us off. Or, We got a better offer. Hamlin’s was undercut by rival mechanic shops. Billy’s two closest local competitors, Queens Cars and MacAdams Auto Services, both received large injections of cash from white knight buyers that enabled them to slash their prices—bizarrely, given that the auto business generally was in a severe recession at the time.
Alexia got back to the hotel at five, took a power nap and a shower, and was about to go out and grab an early bite to eat when her phone rang.
“Where are you?” Lucy Meyer’s voice was as warm and conspiratorial as ever.
Alexia grinned. “You know where I am. I’m in New York, the city that never sleeps.”
“Still?”
“Still. I fly to England tomorrow.”
“I see. So, have you solved the case yet, Sherlock Holmes?”
“No, not yet. I’ve been chasing my tail, as usual. What’s going on with you?”
“Look out of your window.”
Alexia did a double take. “Look out of my window? Now?”
“No, in two weeks’ time. Yes, now!”
“But why?”
“Just do it!”
Alexia walked over to the window and jimmied it open. Below her, on the street, stood Lucy, grinning like the cat that swallowed the canary. She had her cell phone in one hand and a cluster of Barneys shopping bags in the other.
“I thought I’d come and check on you!” she shouted up. “So where are you taking me for dinner?”
They ate at Elaine’s, at Lucy’s insistence.
“I only get to New York once in a blue moon, so I may as well treat myself.”
“I thought I was getting dinner?”
“That’s right, you are. Even better. Think I’ll go for the caviar, the lobster ravioli, and a nice bottle of vintage Chablis. And you can explain what on earth you’ve been doing here all this time, not to mention when you decided to go to London. I thought you said you weren’t planning to go to the sentencing.”
“I wasn’t. But I changed my mind.”
“Because . . . ?”
Alexia took a sip of her white wine. “Teddy’s done a lot of terrible things. But then so have I, in the past. He’s still my husband.”
