Page 75 of The House Guest

Wanda nodded like she got it. ‘Let’s get back to the question of who Gabriel is. There’s nothing in any of my databases related to people called Gabriel. So then I thought maybe he’s named himself after the angel. Maybe the whole cult is based around angels. It’s a thing. And yeah, there are plenty of groups that worship angels and Gabriel above all of them. I spent quite some time going down that route but I think it’s a blind alley. From what we know of this cult, they’re not Christian. They don’t seem to be religious at all. So that made me think we’re looking for someone whose name actually is Gabriel.’

‘Is it a popular name in the US?’

She laughed. ‘Guess what? I looked that shit up. It’s very popular now. It peaked in 2008, when just under thirteen thousand babies in the US were given that name. But it wasn’t that popular in the seventies or eighties, which is probably when our Gabriel was born.’

‘Thank God he’s not called John.’

‘Ha, yeah. Or Adam. Anyway, the next step was to see if I could find anyone called Gabriel who has or had a known relationship with either Mona Cunningham or Dennis Krugman. Old classmates. Former co-workers. College buddies. I checked Mona first. Total dead end. She went to a private all-girls school and she’s never had a job apart from a series of businesses she’s run herself, and there was no way I could get hold of a list of her clients. There was no one in her college class called Gabriel either. I even checked her Facebook page and all her social media to see if they were dumb enough to be connected online, but no luck.’

Yet again, she looked over at the door. A Britney Spears song was playing now. I guessed Wanda didn’t know her.

‘I didn’t get anywhere with Mona so next I looked at Krugman. There was actually a Gabriel in his class at elementary school, but he died six years ago. Again, he’s not connected to anyone called Gabriel on social media. And, unfortunately, I can’t access police HR files to see if he’s ever worked with someone with that name.’

‘Krugman must have come into contact with a lot of different people,’ I said. ‘Other cops. Lawyers. Criminals.’

‘Oh yeah. I thought I wasn’t going to get anywhere with Krugman. Was about to give up. And then my research assistant found this.’ She had taken off her shades and her eyes shone. This was what she had been waiting to tell me. Building up to it. It was like watching one of her YouTube videos: the creation of drama before the reveal.

I snatched the sheet of paper from her hand. It was a printout of a newspaper story from 2014.

NEW YORK CITY PUBLIC SERVICE AWARD WINNERS ANNOUNCED

Beneath the headline was a photo of a group of men and women, proudly holding large medals. Second from the left was Krugman.

‘He won the Law and Order Award for some big case he was involved with,’ Wanda said. ‘But see this guy next to him?’

She pointed to a white man in his late thirties beside Krugman. Like Krugman he was wearing a tux and was smiling for the camera. But the smile, though it revealed an immaculate set of teeth, didn’t reach this guy’s eyes.

‘That’s Gabriel Dearman,’ Wanda said. ‘He received a special Service to the Community Award for building a youth centre in Brooklyn.’

‘Who is he?’ I asked, unable to take my eyes off him. There was something vaguely familiar about him. Maybe it was just that he looked like a thousand other guys.

‘He’s one of New York’s lesser-known billionaires. There are stories about him in the business press, but he’s publicity-shy. Seems he made his money through a lot of smart investments in tech companies.’ She named a half-dozen corporations who had come to prominence in the last decade. ‘Owns one of the tallest buildings in Brooklyn – his own Trump Tower, if you like. Except he’s not ostentatious like Trump. It’s not called Dearman Heights or anything like that.’

She showed me the location on her phone.

‘Do you think he could be our guy?’

‘I think there’s a very good chance of it. Because guess what else I found out?’

‘Don’t keep me in suspense,’ I said.

‘He went to college with Jack. Columbia, Psychology, Class of ’99.’

‘Holy shit.’

‘Holy indeed. And Mona was at Columbia at the same time, wasn’t she?’

‘Yes. She was dating Jack.’

‘So the likelihood is that she knew Gabriel too.’

I stared at the photo of Gabriel Dearman. This was him. Ithadto be.

‘I’m going to do some more digging, see what else I can find out about him,’ Wanda said. ‘Like I said, he’s very private. Tell Callum not to go banging on Dearman’s front door, okay?’

‘Why?’

Wanda leaned forward. ‘Firstly, you don’t go around yelling accusations at guys like this. He can afford the best lawyers and the best security. Spook him and he could be in the Cayman Islands within hours. We have to be extra-careful, okay? That’s vital. If Dearman gets any inkling we’re on to him, he’ll be gone. And who knows what wreckage he’ll leave behind? We already know how the cult feels about witnesses. What they do to them. You don’t want them to cut your girlfriend’s throat and leave her in the woods, do you?’

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