The Immortality Plot

The Immortality Plot - chapter 17

“Grace Ryan,” said Miles Dunning as he and Delaney shared a coffee and toast breakfast in the agent’s kitchen diner. “Yes, I know Grace Ryan, at least we have spoken a few times but I’ve never met her. Maria told me about her and I checked her out a little. I’d completely forgotten her until now. Grace Ryan is a human rights lawyer working out of Washington. She’s a kind of campaigning Exocet missile who champions the underdog and is known as the queen of lost causes. Maria mentioned her name to me a couple of times. I think they met at some conference or other and they hit it off. And yes, now you come to mention it, there is that unfinished article. Grace Ryan has written some stuff on really controversial issues but she has always got right up the noses of every editor she’s approached for publication. She’s just too self-opinionated, difficult, tetchy and confrontational to win over the hearts and minds of magazine proprietors. That’s what they told me when I contacted a few of them.”

“Do you represent her?” Delaney asked.

“No”, Maria suggested it and showed me some things she’d done. I spoke to her by telephone and she told me exactly what she wanted an agent to do, considering we were the lackeys of the publishing industry. It didn’t go down too well. I kind of liked her actually. I don’t mind confrontational or even rude. Grace Ryan only wants things done on her terms. We never came to an agreement so I wished her well.”

“How well did Maria know her?”

“Can’t say. I think that Ryan came up with the idea for that article because she had stumbled on something. Maybe it was just hearsay. Maybe there was just no proof. I think it was just one of those projects that Maria started and put to one side. From what I can gather the two women got on really well, which might be a first for Grace Ryan. But I think it was one of those intermittent relationships.”

“How does she survive?” asked Delaney. “Lawyers make big bucks and if she can write as well then she should be making waves.”

“You’ll have to ask her. I think she does all right because every crackpot organization with an axe to grind turns to her first. And some of them have money. She’s often at the heart of human rights abuse cases – people imprisoned by oppressive regimes – that kind of thing. Maria told me her life has been threatened more than once.”

Within minutes of finishing breakfast, Dunning said he needed to start work and was there any other help he could give Mike Delaney? The answer was a profound thank you and, no, he was going to put a call into Grace Ryan straight away and book a flight to Washington for that day.

Delaney packed his bag and laptop and made the call. The ‘phone rang for about thirty seconds before a tired and slightly fractious voice answered.

“Ryan.”

“Hello,” said Delaney. “My name is Mike Delaney. I’m Maria Montalban’s husband.” Before he could say anything else Grace Ryan burst into tears. “Sorry, forgive me, I don’t usually react like that when someone calls. I’ve just returned from Australia and I’ve been catching up with the news. I cannot believe Maria is dead. I’m so sorry.”

This didn’t sound like the tigress he had been expecting, more like a pussycat.

“Thank you,” said Delaney. “Look, Ms. Ryan, I won’t beat about the bush. I am trying to track down Maria’s killer and find out why she was murdered. You might not know it but she was three months pregnant when it happened. I am also trying to find a young woman who has disappeared. Her name is Rachel Maclean and I believe Maria’s murder, Rachel’s disappearance, the disappearance and murder of another young woman, Lisa Chalmers, an organization called Lifeforce International, two men; Claude Rattin and Craig Murray are in some way connected. And I believe you might be able to help.”

“Shit!” Grace Ryan exploded the epithet like she was spitting shrapnel.

This is more like it, thought Delaney.

She continued. “Are you the one they call The Monk on that Confess-Confess site by any chance?”

“Yes,” Delaney admitted. “I am.” She was sharp, even though she must be jet-lagged.

“Thought so. Maria and I were trying to collaborate on something that might tie in, I don’t know. She told me about you. You sounded interesting, not like the usual jerks she told me she used to meet. Look, I’d like to pursue that project on my own. From what you are saying there might be a link or there might not. Claude Rattin is a very elusive and unsavory individual. But Maria managed to get an interview with him which is quite extraordinary.”

Delaney said. “Maria met with Rattin? When, where?”

“You sound more like me than me,” retorted Ryan. “Sorry, I’m still on Australian time. It was about six or seven months ago, here, in Washington. Look, I need to get some sleep.”

“I need to see you,” said Delaney. “I can catch the next flight out.”

“Fine, but I might not be my normal good tempered self,” she said. “Take down the address and call me when you get in.” She recited the details then hung up.

Delaney checked his bank account online. Bob Messenger had already made a deposit. Next, Delaney booked a return ticket business class from Washington to New York. He had a long standing war with airlines when it came to leg room and there was no way he was flying any kind of distance curled up in economy. He checked out the ‘Success Gene’ conference at The Harvard Club on West 34th Street and found there were still some delegate places left at two hundred dollars a throw. He took a deep breath and thanked God for Bob Messenger. He booked a place on line under his own name. It might serve to cause a few reactions when he arrived. He waited. The email confirmation arrived in his mailbox with a receipt for his credit card transaction.

His final move before he left to catch a cab to the airport was to email Bob Messenger, thank him for the funds and update him on his itinerary.

As he sat in his taxi battling through traffic out to Queens he thought about what Grace Ryan had told him. Maria had met Rattin. That was explosive news. Shit, Delaney had had no idea that while they were enjoying their idyllic life in Monterey that any of this was going on.

Speaking of Monterey, Delaney was reminded with a start that he had not been home for nearly a week. He put in a call to his neighbor William Stokes who told him that there had been a few reporters sniffing round and that the detective from San Benito had been seeing loitering near the house but other than that there was nothing to worry about. Delaney mentioned that he was considering selling up and Stokes told him that he had only just retired from his own realtor business and knew everyone in the industry locally. If he would like him to ask around, bearing in mind the fire damage and the need to finish clearing the site properly, then he would. Delaney was grateful and told him so.

As he reached the airport he realized with a sudden shock that his wife had lived almost a parallel life to their domesticity in Monterey.

What other secrets had she kept from him?

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