I shook my head. “No way. This isn’t a jaunt. It’s work. I’ve got enough to worry about without having to think about whether you’re having a nice time. I really appreciate you doing this, but you’re not coming with me.”
Richard scowled. “I don’t suppose you know where this guy’s going?”
“I’ve no idea. But where he goes, I follow.”
“You might need some protective coloring,” he pointed out. “I’ve heard you say that sometimes there are situations where a woman on her own stands out where a couple don’t.
I think I should come along. I could share the driving.“
“No. And no. And no again. You don’t expect me to interview spotty adolescent wannabe rock stars, and I don’t expect you to play detectives. Go home, Richard. Please?”
He sighed, looking mutinous. “All right,” he said, sounding exactly like his nine-year-old son Davy when I drag him off the computer and tell him ten is not an unreasonable bedtime. He flung open the car door and got out, turning back to say, “Just don’t expect me to feed the cat.”
“I haven’t got a cat,” I said, grinning at his olive branch.
“You could have by the time you get back. Take care, Brannigan.”
I waved as I drove off, keeping an eye on him in my rearview mirror. As I took my place in the slowly moving queue, I saw him get in the car and drive off. Half an hour later, I was standing in the stern of the ship, watching the quay recede inch by inch as we slowly moved away from the dock and out toward the choppy steel gray waters of the North Sea.
I spent almost all of the trip closeted in my cabin with a spy thriller I’d found stuffed into the door pocket of Bill’s car. The only time I went out was for dinner, which comes included in the fare. I left it to the last possible moment, hoping Turner would have eaten and gone by then. I’d made the right decision; there was no sign of him in the restaurant, so I was able to enjoy my meal without having to worry about him clocking me. I was certain he wouldn’t recognize me as the tart with the buckle, but if this surveillance lasted any length of time, the chances were that he’d see me somewhere along the line. I didn’t want him connecting me back to the ferry crossing.
On the way back to the cabin, I changed some money: £50 each of guilders, Belgian francs, deutsche marks, French francs, Swiss francs and lire. Nothing like hedging your bets. The sea was calm enough for me to get a decent night’s sleep, and when we docked at Rotterdam, I felt refreshed enough to drive all day if I had to. From where I was placed on the ear deck, I couldn’t actually see Turner, and the steel hull of the ship didn’t do a lot of favors for the reception on the tracking monitor.
Once I was clear of the ship, however, the signal came back strong and clear. For once, Bill’s mongrel European ancestry worked to my advantage. He makes so many trips to the continent to visit family that he has serious road maps and city street plans for most of northern Europe neatly arranged in a box in his boot. I’d shifted the box to the backseat and infolded a map of Holland and Belgium on the passenger seat. Comparing the map to the monitor, I reckoned Turner vas heading for Eindhoven. As soon as I got on the motorway I stepped on the gas, pushing my speed up toward a ton, trying to close the distance between us.
Within half an hour, I had Turner in my sights again. He was cruising along just under ninety, and there was enough traffic on the road for me to stay in reasonably close touch without actually sitting on his bumper. He stayed on the motorway past Eindhoven. The next possible stop was Antwerp. From my point of view, there couldn’t be a better destination. Bill’s mother grew up in the city and he still has a tribe of relations there. I’ve been over with him on weekend trips a couple of times, and I fell in love with the city at first sight. Now I feel like I know it with the intimacy of a lover.
It was my lucky day. He swung off the E34 at the Antwerp turnoff and headed straight for the city center. He seemed to know where he was going, which made following him a lot tastier than if he’d kept pulling over to consult a map or ask a passerby for his destination. Me, I was just enjoying bang back in Antwerp. I don’t know how it manages it, but it still manages to be a charming city even though it’s the economic heartbeat of Belgium. You don’t normally associate culture with huge docks, a bustling financial center and the major petrochemical industries. Not forgetting Pelikaanstraat, second only to Wall Street in the roll of the richest streets in the world. Come to think of it, what better reason could a fence have for coming to Antwerp than to do a deal in Pelikaanstraat, since its diamonds are the most portable form of hard currency in the world?
It began to look as if that was Turner’s destination. We actually drove along the street itself, diamond merchants lining one side, the railway line the other. But he carried on up to the corner by Centraal Station and turned left into the Keyserlei. He slipped into a parking space just past De Keyser, the city center’s most expensive hotel, took his briefcase and suit carrier out of the car and walked inside. Cursing, I made a quick circuit of the block till I found a parking garage a couple of hundred meters away. I chose one of the several bars and restaurants opposite the hotel and settled down with a coffee and a Belgian waffle. I was just in time to see a liveried flunky drive off in Turner’s car, presumably taking it to the hotel garage.
I was on my third coffee when Turner reemerged. I left the cup, threw some money on the table and went after him. He crossed over to the square by the station and walked toward the row of tram stops on Carnotstraat. He joined the bunch of people waiting for a tram. I dodged into a nearby tobacconist and bought a book of tram tickets, praying he’d still be there when I came out.
He was, but only just. He was stepping forward to board a tram that was pulling up at the stop. I ran across the street and leapt onto the second of the two carriages just before the doors hissed shut. Turner was sitting near the front, his back to me. He got off near the Melkmarkt, and I had no trouble following him past the cathedral and into the twisting medieval streets of the old town. He was strolling rather than striding, and he didn’t look like he had the slightest notion that he might be followed. That was more than I could say for myself. I kept getting a prickling sensation in the back of my neck, as if I were aware at some subconscious level of being watched. I kept glancing over my shoulder, but I saw nothing to alarm me.
Eventually, we ended up in the Vrijdag Markt. Since it was too late for the twice-weekly secondhand auction, I could only assume Turner was heading for the Plantin-Moretus Museum. I’d tracked him all the way round Antwerp just so we could go round a printing museum? I hung back while he bought a ticket, then I followed him in. While it was no hardship to me to revisit one of my favorite museums, I couldn’t see how it was taking me any nearer my art-racket mastermind.
The Plantin-Moretus house and its furnishings are just as they were when Christopher Plantin was Europe’s boss printer back in the sixteenth century. But Nicholas Turner didn’t seem too interested in soaking up the paintings, tapestries, manuscripts and antique furniture. He was moving swiftly through the rooms. Then I realized he was heading straight for the enclosed garden at the heart of the rectangular house. Rather than follow him out into the open air, I stayed put on the first floor, where I could see what was going on.
Turner sat down on a bench, appearing to be simply enjoying the air. After about five minutes, another man joined him. They said nothing, but when the stranger moved on a few minutes later, he left his newspaper beside Turner’s briefcase. Another few minutes went by, then Turner picked up the paper, placed it in his briefcase and started for the exit. The man had definitely been watching too many James Bond films.