She locked the office door behind her, walked quickly toward the lift, and then stopped. A letter had fallen to the floor. She knew that she must have been the one who had made that happen, and she simply could not litter and walk away. She picked it up, reached to put it back on the desk, and then stopped.
One word had caught her eye.
Bodfyn? Really?
It was in the very first line. She looked closer. Yes, that’s where it was from. She read the letter, which was very short. Her eyes grew wide and she read it again. She checked her watch, and then, even though there was little time, she ran to the photocopier, made a copy, then returned the letter to its original envelope in the stack, stuffed the copy of it into her purse, and hurried on to the stairwell.
She got out to the alley without seeing anyone, or being seen, so far as she could tell. But the fog was burning off. She began to run toward the end of the alley at Marylebone Road; she didn’t slow to a fast walk until she became afraid people would notice.
She turned to her left and joined the pedestrian commuters heading toward the intersection of Marylebone Road and the two hundred block of Baker Street. She held back and waited for the light to change so that she could cross the intersection with the crowd; after that, she kept going several more yards, just past the eight-foot bronze statue of Sherlock Holmes, and then she turned left and entered the Marylebone tube station.
She was going with the flow, and that was a good thing. Whether any of the paparazzi, stationed a quarter of the way up Baker Street, had been alert enough to glance over as the light changed and notice her, she didn’t know. It would have been a mistake to turn and look, so she just kept on moving.
She hurried down the stairs along with everyone else. As she reached the fork in the stairwell, where busker musicians played for tips and the crowd divided to get to one tunnel direction or the other, a blast of wind came up from a train departing to the south. She wanted the train heading north, to Charing Cross, and she could hear the roar of it coming now. Normally, she would have paused to toss in a few coins for the buskers. No time for that today. She ran down the steps and got to the platform just as the train doors opened, with the crowd pushing (in the polite English way) and the PA system ordering everyone to mind the gap.
Now she could breathe a sigh of relief. She was on the train. Standing, to be sure, because all the seats were taken, but she was fine with that. She could sit down at Charing Cross, where she would get the overland train to Cornwall. For now, she was safe amid the crowd.
5
LONDON, THE NEXT AFTERNOON
Lord Buxton had an ear worm. A song stuck in his head. There didn’t seem to be anything he could do to make it go away.
Is she really going out with him?
That was the lyric. At the suggestion of his personal secretary—a lovely girl, whose résumé included Cheltenham Ladies’ College and the pages of the Victoria’s Secret catalog—he was trying to get it out of his head by contemplating the Thames. After all, she had said, what was the point of having the biggest picture window in all of London if you didn’t look at the river occasionally?
The remark was a bit naïve; she should have known that the point of having the biggest picture window in all of London overlooking the Thames was just to have it—not to waste time contemplating the river through it.
But Buxton was so desperate that he had tried it—contemplating. And of course it didn’t get rid of the ear worm:
Is she really going out with him?
Buxton had not heard that song lyric since he was a teenager, but he had been thinking of it for days now. He well knew the reason why, though he was careful not to let anyone else in on it. One doesn’t reveal one’s crushes; that way lies ridicule—unless requited—even if one is the most powerful media magnate in the world.
In any case, staring at the Thames wasn’t going to help: Laura Rankin was getting married to Reggie Heath, and Lord Buxton could not fathom her choice. He had, in fact, been trying to prevent this very occurrence for the past several years—ever since meeting the woman and realizing he had to have her for himself.
His chances had looked very good at first; Heath had just made some colossal blunder when Buxton came on the scene. And Buxton had so much more to offer—a motion picture company of his very own to make her films; a media empire to celebrate them; penthouses and châteaux everywhere in the world for the parties after; and best of all—well, simply the fact that he was who he was: Lord Buxton.
Not some bleedin’ half-penny lawyer whose only claim to fame was the foolishness of locating his law chambers in the lower portion of the two hundred block of Baker Street, thereby obliging him to uphold the last vestiges of British tradition by—of all things—actually responding to letters written to Sherlock Holmes.
It was a quirky, almost humiliating requirement, at least for any respectable sort of barrister, and so Buxton had made a special point of broadcasting to the world all of Reggie Heath’s most embarrassing attempts to fulfill his obligation. In recent years, as reported by Buxton’s Daily Sun, Reggie Heath, QC, had blown up a subway tunnel in Los Angeles, set a London serial killer free and then murdered him, nearly destroyed the institution of black cabs in London, and furthered the delusions of a lunatic who believed herself to be the great-great-granddaughter of an actual Professor Moriarty.
But Buxton’s most concerted efforts had not yielded the intended result. Not only had Heath won Laura Rankin back but, for some reason, she had stuck by him through all of it. And now time had run out. The wedding was today—less than an hour ago, in fact—and Lord Buxton had finally unleashed his most powerful weapon to try to stop it: the fiercest, most unscrupulous team of paparazzi in the world.
Until now, he had used a very careful touch. It wouldn’t do just to swing unwelcome publicity like a sledgehammer, as Buxton’s tabloid media usually did, and the devil take the consequences. He wanted to hit Reggie, not Laura. He had to wield his weapons as a surgeon would a scalpel. Cut out the malignant competition but do no harm to the patient. Perhaps a slight scar, at most.
But today was the wedding, and he had turned them loose.
Now his personal secretary buzzed him.
“I have them online, sir,” she said.
“Let’s see them,” said Buxton.
A very large digital screen descended now in front of the picture window. Within a few seconds, the pixels had formed, and there was Buxton’s team, still on the scene at the wedding location—two men and one woman, ranging in age from twenty-six to fifty, all with expressions of deep shame and apprehension. The news could not be good.
“Well?”
“You were absolutely right, sir,” said the eldest of the three paparazzi. “The cancellation was a sham. The wedding was still on. It was at the estate of Ms. Rankin’s aunt in Cornwall. No one was supposed to know.”
“And?”
“I used the undercover contact I made at the rehearsal. She’s Reggie Heath’s clerk at Baker Street Chambers, you see, and she knows practically everything. I just got her a bit tingly with wine, chatted her up, and I determined not only the location but the time and—”
“Yes, Fabio, you’re a great Lothario and a tactical genius; we all get it. That’s your job,” said Buxton. “But what happened?”
“We have this, sir.”
Fabio held up a digital thumb drive.
“Plug it in,” said Buxton.
Fabio plugged the drive into his device and began his presentation, alternating between views of himself and the photos they had acquired.
“This is the back lawn of the estate. The fellow glaring at me is Spenser, the butler. Almost caught me sneaking in through the hedge, but he wasn’t quite sure. This one is the wedding party beginning to assemble—that woman there, the bridesmaid with the startled look, that’s Lois, the barrister’s clerk I told you about, before she recognized me from the rehearsal and raised the alarm.”
“Get to the point, p
lease,” said Buxton.
Now the young female paparazzo standing next to Fabio jumped in and seized the digital clicker.
“These ones are mine. I’ll present them myself, if you don’t mind. Now then, here’s one of the groom, our Mr. Heath, standing and waiting for the bride, and—and you know, in person, he’s not nearly so unattractive and silly as you said; I almost think he’s rather—”
“Move on,” said Buxton tersely.
“And here he is taking a swing at Fabio—which Fabio ducks, and so here you see Mr. Heath’s momentum carrying him right into the wedding cake—”
“I like that one. Make a note,” said Buxton.
“Of course. And now here’s Fabio retreating from Mr. Heath, and now Mr. Heath again, with his hands on his face after I had to punch him to keep him from ripping Fabio’s camera away. And then here’s that butler fellow in a golf cart, chasing Fabio, and—”
“The bride,” said Buxton, “where is Laura Rankin?”
“And here you see Laura Rankin and Reggie Heath from behind as they both run into the barn on the back lawn. And next, when the barn doors open, we have—”
“Next we have mine,” said the third paparazzo, seizing the clicker, “and I risked my bloody life to get them. There—there—you see that?”
“The underside of a small plane?”
“Yes, yes—she nearly flew into me, would have cut me to shreds. I almost fell over the cliff getting out of the way!”
“She? You mean Laura?”
“Yes, the groom was in the passenger seat, and the bride was flying the bloody thing. That’s how they got away. They ran into this barn at the far end of the estate, I ran after them, and then the barn doors opened and they came out in that. A Cessna 150, I think.”
“What about the bloody ceremony?” said Buxton. “Did they complete the ceremony, or did they not?”
“By ‘complete’ it, do you mean—”
“Did they actually exchange vows?”
There was a long pause as the three paparazzi conferred. Finally, they all stuck their heads into digital view again.
“We’re not sure,” said Fabio.
Buxton drummed his fingers on his rosewood and ebony desk.
“Where was the plane headed?” he asked finally.
“We don’t know,” said Fabio. “It started out over the coast, but we think it turned when it got into the clouds.”
“Well, find the bloody hell out!” said Buxton. “Don’t just stand there. Go!”
Now the transmission cut off.
As the video screen retracted to its original position, Buxton went to the window and looked down at the Thames again.
Bloody hell.
Is she really going out with him?
6
CORNWALL
In the years that he had known her, Reggie had never once heard Laura mention that she knew how to fly a plane.
But she was flying one now. She in her wedding dress. He in his tux. Both of them with mud on their shoes. Laura with grass stains forever embedded in that designer dress, and deliciously moist wedding cake and frosting in her hair; Reggie with bruised knuckles on his right hand and a worse bruise under his left eye.
At the estate, as he was getting dressed, Reggie had received a note from Laura, saying that she had a backup plan—that if the paparazzi should somehow discover their wedding location and invade, she had a foolproof plan of escape for the honeymoon: They would simply abandon their reservations in the south of France, where the paparazzi would surely know to look, and go somewhere else.
She hadn’t said where the somewhere else would be. Or that they would get there in a plane not much bigger than Reggie’s new Range Rover. Or that she would be the pilot.
But she had done a fine job of it to this point, so far as Reggie could tell. They were still airborne, and still moving. And flying by instruments, in the dark.
But then, of course, in a plane, it is the landing that is important.
“The subject never came up,” said Laura.
“What subject?”
“That I had a pilot’s license.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“You were about to.”
“No, I wasn’t.” Then: “What do you mean, ‘had’?”
“Oh, you are supposed to get retested and relicensed every so many years if you don’t log enough hours, and I haven’t in a while, but no matter. It’s the same plane I learned in, after all, and that was only sixteen years ago, and well, of course the sky is still the sky.”
“And the earth is still the earth,” said Reggie. “But how do we know where it is in the dark?”
Reggie was looking down through the window on his right. They were flying above a broad cloud bank. There were stars and a waxing moon overhead, but nothing distinguishable below.
“One of these dials tells us,” said Laura. “That one there. Oh, would you tap it, please? It doesn’t seem to be lighting up.”
Reggie tapped the dial.
“Harder,” said Laura.
Reggie tapped it harder.
“Hmm,” said Laura. “Well, no matter. I’m sure we’ll be able to see something when we get lower.”
And with that, Laura took the plane down in what felt to Reggie like a roller coaster dive.
“There, that’s better,” said Laura. “We’re below the clouds now. Do you see anything?”
Reggie looked down.
“No. It’s all black. What happened to civilization? I can’t even make out the terrain—”
“Well, we’re flying over the national preserve, is why. But I’ve flown this route once in the daylight, so I know what’s below and I can give you the three-penny tour if you like. Right now we should be just over the pine—”
Reggie interrupted.
“Just once?”
“Yes. Why?”
“No reason.”
“So right now we’re over a patch of pine forest, and then some oaks, and after that it’s mostly just moors. Out to the left is a lake, with the forest on one side and the moor on the other. Out to the right will be the village of Bodfyn, but we can’t land there, so we’re going just straight ahead, and any moment now, if we’re low enough, we should see just one light. But I don’t see it yet, do you? I suppose we’ll just have to descend a little bit farther—”
“No, no, wait; let’s not be hasty,” said Reggie. “I think I see something. Yes, a light. Down there—well, of course—ahead and just a bit to the right.”
“Ah, brilliant. There she is, just where she should be. Right, then, here we go!”
Laura took the plane down in a steady, steep slope, curving to the right—in the direction of the single, fuzzy, yellowish point of light that Reggie had spotted below.
Soon they saw the source of the light—a handheld lantern that someone was swinging back and forth—and the ground, approaching rapidly.
“Seat belt?” said Laura.
“Seriously?” said Reggie. “You think I waited until now?”
Laura cut the engine; the wheels touched; mud and grass sprayed from beneath the plane. The landing gear bounced once, but only slightly, and then the wheels touched again, this time firmly. The plane shook and wobbled, and in another moment they had come to a full stop.
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” said Laura. Now she breathed a sigh of relief herself. “Think how smooth it would have been if only we’d had an actual runway.”
The lantern was no longer swinging. The person holding it—and keeping a safe distance—lifted it as high as possible now, and called out. It was a woman’s voice.
“All settled, then, are we?”
“Bob’s your uncle!” yelled Laura.
“I’ll just get the car and be right over,” yelled the woman, and then she and the lantern went away a short distance.
“My,” said Laura. “That certainly got the blood up, didn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Reggie.
“You know what fl
ying always makes me want to do?” said Laura. Her face was flushed, her eyes shining, and her breasts rising and falling with each adrenaline-fueled breath.
Reggie could barely see any of that, it was so dark, but he could hear it, sense it, and smell her perfume with every move.
“Can we tell the woman with the car just to go away?” he asked as they leaned in toward each other. “Perhaps if you start the propellers again?”
Too late. Headlamps shone on them now, the propellers could no longer be a deterrent, and a sleek but quirky 1970s Citroën came humming right up to the plane.
The middle-aged lantern woman jumped out of the car and ran excitedly toward them, not bothering to turn off the headlamps.
“Laura! You look wonderful!”
Laura gave Reggie an encouraging push to get out of the plane.
“Thank you, Mrs. Hatfield. So do you!”
Laura made introductions, with the three of them standing in the damp, dark meadow, framed in the lights of the car. Mrs. Hatfield, Laura said fondly, was her theater teacher from her first years of secondary school.
“And you were my very best pupil,” said Mrs. Hatfield. “And my goodness, look at you now. I’m so glad you took my advice all those years ago and adopted a stage name. Nothing against Penobscott, of course, but—well, you know how very like children people in the entertainment world can be. Now, come right along, both of you. I know you don’t want to dally, my little Juliet and Romeo. Mustn’t be naughty out here in the open.”
Laura grabbed the smaller bag, and Reggie lugged the other two. Before they reached the car, Reggie spoke in a low and puzzled voice to Laura.
“I didn’t know you went to school here,” he said. “I thought you grew up in Cornwall. At the castle, with your aunt.”
“Oh, yes, but that was only from sixteen on. Before that—after my parents died—I went to the boarding school here. My aunt couldn’t be reached, out gallivanting in the wilds of Australia somewhere, the sort of thing she was inclined to do back in the day, and my parents had already signed me up for this school, so this is where I went. For almost two years.”
A Baker Street Wedding Page 3
