As the Pig Turns - By M.C. Beaton Page 0,56

turned to Toni. ‘Miss Gilmour, are you sure your decision to come here was made at the last minute?’

‘Sure as sure. Agatha decided to close the agency for two weeks because we were all afraid someone might be out to get us. I met Chelsea just by chance and she persuaded me to come on the trip. I think I want to go home now.’

‘Me too,’ said Agatha. ‘Let whining little Chelsea make her own way.’

‘You are pretty harsh, ma’am. She’s a very young girl who’s had a bad fright.’

‘Well, I can do bugger all for her when she won’t even see me or let me help,’ howled Agatha.

Parry looked at her with dislike. Ball-breaking old trout, he thought. Aloud, he said, ‘Let us know which flight you will be on.’

‘We should really be around to take care of her,’ protested Toni.

‘It’s you they’re after, not her,’ said Agatha. ‘Oh, well, one last try. Back to the hospital.’

‘I’ll go,’ said Toni quickly. ‘She might speak to me if you’re not there.’

‘Ask her how he got her to leave with him.’

‘He had a gun.’

‘He couldn’t have taken a gun into the casino. He must have said something else.’

Toni had noticed a medical-supply shop near the hospital. She bought a white lab coat and a stethoscope. In an adjacent tourist shop, she bought a square badge with the legend I LOVE LAS VEGAS.

In the hospital, she went to the toilets and locked herself in a cubicle, where she put on the white coat and hung the stethoscope around her neck. She then took out a pair of nail scissors from her pocket and prised open the badge. Fortunately, it was blank on the other side. She printed ‘Dr Finlay’ neatly in black ink. It would have to do. She had left her handbag at the hotel, carrying money and the scissors in her trouser pocket so that she would not have to find a place to hide a handbag.

Toni walked through the hospital corridors. She walked quickly past the policeman on guard outside Chelsea’s door, giving him an efficient nod.

Chelsea opened her mouth to scream, but Toni said hurriedly, ‘You scream and I’ll tell your mum about that fling you had with the sales rep from Birmingham.’

‘You wouldn’t!’

‘Try me.’

‘Wadda ya want?’ demanded Chelsea, who was trying very hard to obtain an American accent.

‘Something more about the man who abducted you. He couldn’t have got a gun into the casino or a knife. Why did you go off with him?’

‘He said he was a detective and wanted a word with me outside.’

‘Did he have a badge?’

‘No. One of them warrant cards.’

‘Did you get a close look at the card?’

‘No, I just followed the guy out, like. Once in the car, he took out a gun, drove with one hand and pointed the gun at me with the other.

‘He said, “I’m going to shut your mouth for once and all, Toni Gilmour. How the hell did you know I was in Las Vegas? Who told you?”

‘I began to cry and said it was a package deal. I wasn’t Toni Gilmour, and he could look at my passport in my handbag if he didn’t believe me. He stopped suddenly when we was out in the desert and he asks me to hand over my bag. He opens it, looks at me passport, swears something awful, chucks the bag out of the winder and tells me to get out. I ran for my life. Right into the desert. I’m going home tomorrow. The British consul has arranged it. So bugger off, Tone, and don’t come near me again.’

‘One more thing. Did you tell the police about the warrant card?’

‘Didn’t remember until later.’

‘American police have badges. Only British police have warrant cards. Didn’t you think of that?’

‘Piss off,’ howled Chelsea.

Agatha’s eyes gleamed with excitement when Toni told her Chelsea’s story. ‘Pack up,’ she said. ‘We’re leaving today.’

‘But what about Chelsea?’

‘Whoever it was wanted you, not her. She’ll be safe.’

Agatha and Toni had hoped to collect their cars from the airport terminal at Gatwick and get back to Mircester, but they were intercepted and taken to a room in the airport where two plain-clothes detectives grilled them. Evidently, the Las Vegas police were angry that they had just disappeared while an investigation was in progress. They were taken through their stories again.

At last, they were released but warned that the Mircester police would be calling on them later.

‘At least they didn’t take my passport away again,’ grumbled Agatha.