The Perfect Fake

by Barbara Parker

  “A taxi.”

  “Did you take it from Claridge’s?”

  “No, I—I—”

  “Come on, babe, think.”

  “From a bookshop on Oxford Street. I didn’t buy anything. I took a walk—”

  “Okay. No one saw me come in. I’ve cleared out my stuff and wiped my prints off anything I touched.”

  “We can’t leave her lying there!” Allison cried out.

  A metallic clank came from outside. Tom looked toward the door. The thin areas of clear glass allowed them to see a heavy figure in brown coming up the walk from the gate.

  “It’s Jenny’s mother,” Tom whispered. “Let’s go.”

  “We can’t do this!”

  Tom jerked Allison closer. “They’ll take us both into custody and they’ll have the map. How will your father get it back this time?” His eyes were fierce, and a drop of spittle hit her cheek.

  Allison looked back and forth from the woman approaching the house to the body of Jenny Gray, sprawled on the floor. Her mother set a sack on the porch and reached into her handbag. There was the jangle of keys.

  “Okay.”

  Tom picked up a backpack by the stairs, and Allison ran after him around a turn, then into a kitchen, holding her purse tightly against her side.

  Tom jerked his head toward the door and mouthed, Open it.

  Slowed by her gloves, she fumbled with the lock, the knob, and finally got it open.

  Tom hissed, “Go out first. Close it behind me. Quietly!”

  The untended backyard gave onto an alley, then brick buildings whose windows were grimed with dirt. They looked both ways, then ran for the gate. Tom held his backpack in his arms. Allison’s hat fell off, and she scrambled to pick it up as she heard the first screams from the house.

  Chapter 18

  When the Eurostar went into the tunnel at 180 miles per hour, Tom’s ears popped from the increase in air pressure. He looked into the

  black windows and imagined the weight of millions of tons of cold seawater. In twenty minutes they would emerge near Calais on the northern coast of France. Allison had given him no arguments about leaving London. They had flagged down a taxi to Victoria Station, had taken another to Claridge’s. Allison had brought what would fit into one suitcase, left the other in the luggage room, and paid her bill.

  Now they were hurtling toward Paris. It would be dark when they got there. They would find a hotel and go on to Italy in the morning. The bright interior of the car was reflected back to him, gray seats and yellow trim. He could see Allison’s profile as she bent her head over her notebook. Her tears of panic and confusion were gone. Tom had asked if she wanted to go back to Miami. She’d said no, not until the map was finished. She had promised her father.

  As Tom gazed into the window, the dim outline of another face seemed to float just beyond the glass. Caramel skin and a wild mop of streaked curls. Jenny. He blinked to rid himself of the image and turned quickly toward the front of the car.

  “Tom? Are you okay?”

  “Sure, why?”

  Allison was looking at him intently. “You’re so pale.” “It’s warm in here.” Tom pulled his sweater over his

  head and stuck it into the seat pocket. He waited until someone had walked past their row, then said quietly, “I want to explain something to you. Why I was at Jenny’s. Yesterday I had some things to pick up, so she took me around London. I stayed with her last night because I was running out of money and dead on my feet. It’s her mother’s place, but Mrs. Gray was gone when I left this morning. She saw me yesterday, but not for more than two seconds. Jenny gave me a key so I could come back and pick up my stuff. When I came in...I found her. There was nothing I could do.”

  “I know that.” Closing her notebook, Allison whispered, “How did she...Was she shot?”

  “No. She was strangled. I don’t know what they used, or he used. I saw marks on her neck. If I could find the guy who did this, I think I would probably kill him.”

  They faced each other, their shoulders pressing into the seats. Allison said, “I still can’t believe it. Oh, God, poor thing. She hadn’t been back in London long enough to make enemies. Did somebody break in? Did you see anything like that? I didn’t notice any broken glass.”

  “There wasn’t any,” Tom said. “The door was unlocked, so maybe she let the guy in, I don’t know. Shit. If I’d been there— She wanted to come with me. I said no.” Allison’s brows came together. “Stop it. Do you remotely, for an instant, imagine that it’s your fault?”

  He shook his head. “By the way. I didn’t sleep with her—in case you were wondering.”

  “No.” Allison amended, “If you did, it’s nobody’s business.”

  The light played on Allison’s glasses, hiding her eyes, and Tom shifted closer to see her. “I never slept with Jenny. We were friends. She was trying to survive, like most of us. She was over here trying to make a new start.”

  Cool, slim fingers lightly touched his hand. “I’m sorry, Tom.”

  “For what?”

  “Sorry that you lost a friend.”

  Allison leaned over so that her forehead rested on his shoulder. He could smell the scent in her hair, which cascaded down his chest. He was afraid to move; she might remember what he was to her: nothing. Running hand in hand from a murder scene had made her forget.

  “And I’m sorry that I misjudged her,” Allison said. “I thought Jenny might have stolen some of my father’s maps from Royce Herron’s house. That’s why I wanted to find her, to ask her, and maybe get them back. It seems so inconsequential now.”

  “She did steal them.”

  Allison lifted her head.

  “Jenny took some maps and a couple of pieces of jewelry that she pawned in Miami. She sold the maps to a dealer in London. Didn’t get much for them. He probably guessed they were hot.”

  “Somebody needs to tell the Miami police about that. Map thieves didn’t murder Royce Herron. They’ll never find his killer going down that blind alley.” Allison sat up in her seat. “Tom...do you think, maybe, that Jenny’s death is related to his?”

  Not something Tom wanted to get into. He said, “I don’t see how. Listen, we need to decide what we’re going to do when we get to Paris. You want to go on to Florence tonight? Otherwise, we’ll lose half a day.”

  “You don’t want to talk about Jenny. It’s okay.”

  Tom nodded slowly. The truth was, he didn’t want to talk about Jenny because he was beginning to get an idea of who had killed her, and he couldn’t share that with Allison. Not yet.

  “Hey, Betty Boop. I want you to promise me something.”

  Her mouth opened a little, then she laughed. “Well, what dusty file drawer did you pull that out of?”

  “Promise me you’ll never mention I was over here— not to anybody. If it ever got back to my probation officer that I was out of the country, I’d be circling the drain.”

  “They could send you to prison for something so minor? No way.”

  “To serve the remainder of my sentence. Six years, two months and change. It was a felony conviction, about ninety-five percent bogus. I’ll tell you about it sometime. I’m taking a big risk, but if I can get back to Miami within a couple of weeks, I should be okay. The Weasel wants me to report to him every month or whenever he feels like yanking my chain.”

  “Who’s the Weasel?” She leaned closer to listen.

  “George Weems, my PO.” Tom pulled a pen from his pocket and drew a caricature in the margin of Allison’s notebook—the narrow face and rodentlike nose. “If he doesn’t like my job, or my friends, or where I live, technically, I could be violated for that.”

  She smiled—her first in hours—at the face. Tom drew an X through it. “So you and I need to forget what we saw, at least for now. When we get back, you should also forget you know me. It could get complicated for you.”

  “How?”

  “Being with me. The Florida Bar wouldn’t like it. Appl
icants have to be squeaky-clean. That’s what I’ve heard. After you’re sworn in, you can go wild.”

  “You want to see if we can get to Italy tonight? Why not?”

  Allison pushed her tray table up and began putting her notebooks and study guides into her tote bag. “They have wireless Internet on the Eurostar. I can use my laptop to find a flight to Florence. We get into the Gare du Nord about seven. We’ll transfer to an RER train for Charles de Gaulle or Orly Airport, depending on where the next flight leaves from, and... siamo in Firenze alle dieci. We’re in Florence by ten o’clock.”

  “You are too much,” Tom said.

  “I should arrange a rental car and a hotel, too.” She smiled. “No more Claridge’s. I’ll get two rooms at a reasonably priced hotel...near the Arno River? I’d love to show you...well, if we have time. I know you have to work. Tom, would you please tell me what you’re going to do? There’s no reason to keep me totally in the dark.”

  “Okay. You’re right. I’m hooking up with a friend of mine who used to live in Miami, Eddie Ferraro. He’s worked in print shops all his life, and he came over here about four years ago. He lives up the coast, but we’ll meet in Florence. I’m paying him half what I earn. Don’t worry, the map isn’t going to be a digital image. We’re just taking some shortcuts on the computer. I’ll explain it all later. This morning I went by a print shop in London and got a high-res scan of the map, and after we talked, I took some closeup images of the Corelli sea charts in the Maritime Museum. This gives me a better idea of Corelli’s techniques as a printer. I’ll take some more photos at the national library in Florence.”

  “The Biblioteca Nazionale,” Allison said. “I can show you where it is.”

  “I can find it.” He held up a hand. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep in touch. Eddie and I will work on the map, I’ll take it to Miami, and voilà. You owe me twenty-five grand. Plus expenses.”

  “If the map is acceptable to my father.”

  “It will be,” Tom said.

  Allison tilted her head. “Eddie Ferraro. Isn’t he the same man your sister Rose used to date? I think I’ve heard of him.”

  “You’ve heard the gossip. They were living together. Rose would have married him, but Eddie got arrested on a federal counterfeiting warrant and jumped bail. He was already out of that life, and he’d never been a major player, but the government wanted twenty years. You’re consorting with some bad people, Allison. That’s what happens when you decide to go into forgery. Now you tell me something. Why does Stuart want this map? He told me it was for himself, but I don’t buy that.”

  “Sorry. I’ll have to claim attorney-client privilege.”

  “After I spilled my story?”

  “No,” she repeated.

  The words were forming in Tom’s mouth, telling Allison about Rhonda’s offer of ten thousand dollars, but he set his teeth together. Allison didn’t need to know. She would go straight to Stuart with it and possibly stir up a fight. Would the deal be canceled? Could be, and Tom wanted to ride this pony as far as it would take him before that happened. Basically, Rhonda had said her husband was crazy. Tom didn’t believe that, but he added it to the other bits of information about Stuart Barlowe. He wanted the truth. He wanted to know what Royce Herron had known. Tom didn’t want to hear Barlowe telling him, Sure, I’ll help you get back into the U.S., but give me the map first, and we’ll have to renegotiate the price.

  He leaned into the aisle. A sign over the door announced that food could be found four cars ahead of them. “Are you hungry?”

  “I hate train food,” Allison said. “Let’s just eat in Paris. I know this little café near Notre Dame that’s not touristy at all. It’s ten minutes on the Metro. We have time.”

  “Let me just see what they’ve got,” he said, pushing out of his seat. “You want some coffee or anything? Stay here, okay?” He shot a quick glance at the suitcases in the rack over their heads. She nodded and told him to bring her some juice.

  At the end of the car Tom pressed a black square, and the glass door smoothly slid away. He waited in the compartment between the cars for a group of German teenagers to come through. Then bright lights rushed at high speed past the windows. The train had come out of the tunnel. Tom went over and looked through the small window to his right. A pale rim of fading gray separated the sky and the dark landscape of France. A line of posts blurred by the window; the lights of a house in the distance flickered and vanished.

  Staring out the small window, his thoughts turned again to Jenny Gray and Royce Herron. But there weren’t just two deaths, there were three. Jenny’s friend Carla was also dead. They had all had one thing in common: Larry Gerard. The girls had both worked for Larry. They’d been involved in his dirty tricks to win approval for those gargantuan towers on the river—which Judge Herron had opposed.

  Removing Carla from the picture, Tom could draw a line to Stuart Barlowe. Barlowe was threatened by whatever secret Herron had discovered, and Jenny had pretended to know about. But in London, Jenny wouldn’t have been a threat.

  Tom returned to his first theory: The Metropolis. Jenny had known about the bribery and blackmail. Stuart Barlowe wasn’t really the kind of guy who could lift a phone and hire a hit man in London. Larry, on the other hand...Larry knew people who would choke a girl’s life out of her. Tom had been on the boat with one of them.

  A woman came through the compartment with a bottle of wine and some cups, reminding Tom where he had intended to go. He pushed the button to open the door and was about to step into the next car when he noticed a man coming out of the washroom at the other end. Dark slacks and sweater, dark hair. The man sat down in a row facing the rear of the train, and his face was quickly hidden behind the seat of the passenger in front of him.

  Backing up, Tom leaned against a luggage rack crammed with suitcases. It had only been a glimpse. Two seconds at the most, but he knew he’d seen this man before. Muscular build, mid- to late thirties. Arching eyebrows, a narrow nose, a widow’s peak on his forehead. The same face he had seen in the shopwindow in London.

  Tom hit the door. It hissed opened and slid back. When he got to the end of the car he stood next to the man’s seat until, with a quizzical expression, the man looked up at him. Tom leaned a hand on his seat back. “Excuse me. Do I know you?”

  That produced an equally quizzical little smile and an accent Tom couldn’t place. “I’m sorry. I... don’t speak English.”

  “Didn’t I see you on Regent Street in London yesterday afternoon?”

  “Sorry.” The man shrugged, kept smiling. The other man in the row glanced up at Tom without interest, then went back to his Times newspaper.

  Tom stood up. “My mistake.”

  He made his way back through the train, having lost any sense of which car was his, until he saw Allison and stood beside her. She’d been watching through the window.

  “You didn’t get anything?”

  “The line was too long.” He glanced in the other direction, toward the washroom at the rear of their car. “I’ll be right back.”

  He went in and closed the narrow door. The light came on, shining on stainless steel. The tick-tick-ticktick-tick of the wheels came through from below. Tom turned on his cell phone and waited while it went through its routine of finding a tower.

  No mistake. That had been the same guy. Tom had seen him three times. Twice, he could have said it was a coincidence, but not three. Like three murders. Too many for a coincidence.

  He thumbed through his address book. Put the phone to his ear. A few seconds later, a voice said, “Pronto.” “Eddie, it’s Tom.”

  “Where are you?”

  “We just got into France on the Eurostar. I think we have a problem.”

  Chapter 19

  Having visited Paris more than a few times, Allison knew how to navigate the Metro system. When she and Tom rushed off the Eurostar with

  five or six hundred other passengers at the Gare du Nord, she followed the signs
for the RER line heading for Charles de Gaulle Airport. Tom pulled her red beret off her head and told her to stash it in her pocket; it was too obvious in the sea of dark clothing. The wheels of her suitcase clicked on the tile floor. Birds swooped in and out of the steel roof supports and fluttered at the high, arched windows.

  They took an escalator down. Tom turned and looked up at the faces of the people behind them. Allison said, “You’re making me really paranoid.” She might not have believed Tom’s improbable story—a man following him in London, then showing up on the train—except for what she herself had seen: Jenny Gray lying dead, strangled. Tom couldn’t say the man in the black coat had killed her, but he didn’t want to take chances.

  On the advice of his friend Eddie Ferraro, they had changed their itinerary. Do not fly to Florence, Eddie had said; take the train to Milan, then another to Genoa, heading south along the Ligurian coast. Eddie lived in a small town where he knew everyone, and this time of year, a stranger would be as obvious as a flamingo.

  At the RER entrance, Allison swiped her credit card for tickets that would get them to Charles de Gaulle. The train was crammed with people heading to the suburbs in the north of the city, more workers than tourists, many North Africans, and at least one woman in a full-length black chador. At the next stop they waited till the doors were about to close, then rushed off the train, crossed the platform, and took the next train going back the way they had come.

  Tom sat facing inward, leaning against his backpack, cradling his messenger bag. Allison pointed up and told him that if they were walking, they would see the two square towers of Notre Dame cathedral. They could cross the Seine to the Left Bank and walk along the riverbank and browse the little bookshops.

  Tom said, “You were going to take me to dinner.” Allison smiled. “Next time.”

  Ten minutes later, at the stop for the Gare de Lyon,

  they took a short Metro line to the departure point for the night train to Milan. They were in the fourth car behind the engine. A uniformed attendant led them along the corridor, windows on one side, faux wood paneling and doors on the other. Before reaching Paris, Allison had phoned ahead to purchase a first-class sleeping compartment with two berths. The attendant helped put away the bags, showed them the tiny bathroom, and requested that they not use the shower until the train was moving. He handed Allison a menu and wine list. They could eat in the dining car or here in their compartment.