A Tangled Web

by Judith Michael

  “They’re in London,” Sabrina said. “Wormwood Scrubs Prison. Not far: Shepherds Bush, on the west side. Shall we each take one?”

  “Oh. Yes, why not?” They looked at each other and burst out laughing. “Remember Dmitri?” Stephanie asked.

  “And Theo, poor Theo, our—”

  “—chauffeur. And those swimming parties when one of us would dive in and nobody knew—”

  “—which one of us came up at which end of the pool.”

  “And one of the embassy secretaries giving us a lecture and getting us mixed up and you’d say—”

  “I’m Sabrina, Miss Derringer, that’s Stephanie,’ and she’d get so furious she’d just about choke on those eighteen strands of pearls she wore every day . . .”

  They were laughing and they moved into each other’s arms, holding each other tightly in the sheer joy of being together. “It’s the same,” Stephanie whispered. “We haven’t lost any of it.”

  Yes, we have, Sabrina thought bleakly, but she did not say it because she did not want to shatter this time together. Right now they were caught up in the hunt, following it with the closeness and delight that had once been the most important things in their lives, and so this brief time itself became the most important thing in their lives, for as long as it lasted.

  But too much has changed. And this is the last time. We’ll never have it again.

  * * *

  The visiting room at Wormwood Scrubs Prison was narrow and low-ceilinged, with a long table for prisoners and their visitors. Impassive guards watched for the slightest movement that was out of the ordinary. The noise increased as visitors arrived; voices bounced off gray walls and the gray floor and ceiling. As she walked into the room Sabrina felt that the world had turned to gray, leaching the color from her blue and green plaid suit, her blue hat and blue leather gloves. And when she took off her gloves her hands looked pasty beneath the unforgiving lights.

  Through a far door, Rory Carr walked in, dressed in gray. His silver hair was slicked back, but that was all that was left of the impeccable art dealer Sabrina remembered. The skin of his neck hung in folds, his eyes were sunken and restless, the pouches beneath them puffed half-moons sliding down his cheeks. But his voice was almost the same: as unctuous as if he oiled it regularly. “Mrs. Andersen, I am very glad to see you. I’ve wanted for a long time to express to you my profound regret at the death of Lady Longworth. I sincerely hope you will believe me when I say that I had nothing but admiration and affection for her. I never knew she would be on the yacht when Ivan proposed his mad scheme. Of course I had no influence on his infantile and destructive behavior, but had I known, I could have tried to stop him. It haunts me that I might at least have tried.”

  “No influence,” Sabrina murmured. The newspapers had reported that Rory Carr had been indicted as a principal—an accomplice, aider and abettor in the heinous crime—and found guilty of murder.

  “None whatsoever.” Carr’s voice deepened. “Lazlo is an animal; no one can deal with him. But foolishly I believed him and trusted him, and I am paying for my foolishness by being forced to greet you in these depressing surroundings.”

  Sabrina sat in the hard straight chair and folded her hands on the table. The room was filling up and the clamor of dozens of voices crying, swearing, demanding, begging, forced everyone to speak even louder to be heard across the width of the table. She looked at Rory Carr’s ruined face and told herself that he had been a partner with Lazlo in murdering fourteen people and in trying to murder her sister. She waited to feel hatred for him, but she felt nothing. Stephanie was alive and Carr’s life was over. So she could talk to him and make him feel she was not an enemy. “No one can deal with Ivan? I thought Max Stuyvesant dealt with him. And with you.”

  “Well, Max . . . Ivan worked for Max for many, many years. At least fifteen. He did Max’s bidding.”

  “Except when he put a bomb under his stateroom.”

  “Please.” Carr held up his hand. “I can’t bear to think of it. Max was one of my favorite people, a good friend, a superb art aficionado, an absolute genius in smuggling. I admired him enormously.”

  “Then it will please you to know that there is a rumor that he is alive.”

  “Alive?” Carr’s body seemed to surge across the table. A guard moved forward and he sat straight again, staring at a far wall. In a moment he smiled a gentle smile. “Dear Mrs. Andersen, that is not possible. Your credulity is charming—very American—but whatever you have heard cannot be true. I would be delighted if it were, but really, there is no way that Max could be alive. He was killed on his yacht last October. Everyone knows that.”

  “There is speculation that in fact he wasn’t killed; that he’s been living in France.”

  “Speculation? A vague word. What does it mean?” His condescending voice roughened at the edges. “Believe me, Mrs. Andersen, he is not alive!”

  “You mean no one else has suggested to you that he might be living in Provence, running an export company in Marseilles, perhaps smuggling counterfeit money into Third World countries?”

  At the addition of each new detail, Carr’s face sagged farther, like taffy oozing off the edge of a spoon. “Of course not. Of course not.” In the surrounding din, a small pool of silence spread between them. “My God . . . could that be possible?” His glance raced around the room. “You’re serious? There is evidence that Max is alive? Mrs. Andersen, you must tell me! Is he alive or not?”

  He had skidded from patronizing to terrified, and it seemed clear to Sabrina that he was telling the truth: no one had told him. So he was not the one who had sent an assassin to Provence. Someone else had, most likely the same person who had ordered Lazlo and Carr to kill Max on his yacht, someone so powerful that Carr was terrified. Of what? Of being punished, perhaps killed, even inside Wormwood Scrubs Prison, for failing to kill Max on his yacht?

  “Well?” he demanded. “Is he alive or not?”

  “I can’t tell you. But if he is, he would be very grateful if you cooperated with the police and told them who ordered you and Lazlo to set the bomb—”

  “What? What’s that? No one ordered us—my God, what are you saying? Ivan set the bomb because he was afraid of Max, afraid Max might kill us. We’d had our little business, you know, small forgeries, nothing major, but it was a nice living. But Max thought it would lead the police to Westbridge, and we quarreled . . . But you know all that; you read it in the papers. What did you mean about someone ordering us?”

  “Perhaps I’m wrong. But suppose there is someone. He’s not in prison; we’d know about it. So he’s outside. How did he manage to put you and Ivan here for years while he went on with his life as if nothing had happened? I know Ivan isn’t too bright, but I thought you’d be too smart for that.”

  “I am. I know what I’m doing.”

  Sabrina tilted her head thoughtfully. “So someone has promised to take care of you when you get out. Money or a job, maybe a house in some warm climate? Come on, Rory, what did he promise you? Even lifers can apply for parole after enough years; you’d still have time to enjoy being set up somewhere. Who was it?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Well,” Sabrina said after a silence, and stood up.

  “You’re not going!” Carr exclaimed. “Our ninety minutes aren’t up.”

  “I might as well, if you can’t tell me anything.”

  “Tell you what?”

  “Whom you’re working for.”

  “I just told you! Is that why you came? Because you imagined . . . Mrs. Andersen, Ivan did it! By himself! I did nothing, though I confess I knew about it. But no one else is involved! I assure you, I swear to you, no one else!”

  His face was shiny with terror and Sabrina felt a rush of triumph because she knew she was right. But there was no pleasure in reducing Rory Carr to terror; she was sick of the whole thing. “Well, as I said, I may be wrong. But I certainly thought there were signs that poi
nted to someone else.”

  Carr’s head jutted forward. “Why?”

  “Oh, rumors; you know how people talk.”

  “More rumors? My God . . . But no one has anything to talk about.”

  “Would Max, if he were alive?”

  “No. Nothing.”

  “How about the man who told you to kill Max?”

  “I told you there wasn’t anyone.”

  “But just as a hypothesis. If someone ordered you and Ivan to kill Max, he’d have something to talk about, wouldn’t he? Maybe in bed with someone or in a bar or at a party where everyone was bragging about something or other . . .”

  “No! It’s a crazy hypothesis.”

  “Well, crazy or not, perhaps he sends you money and writes to you and does what he can to make you more comfortable. Does anyone write to you or send you money?”

  “No.”

  “I’m sorry to hear it. You have indeed been abandoned. How about visits?”

  “No.”

  “No visits?”

  “Not since—” Carr pressed his lips together, struggled with the idea of saying more, then shrugged. “Not for a couple of months. Nicholas used to visit both of us, but he stopped. Of course he’s having financial troubles and I gather he and Amelia have gone their separate ways, but still, he’s a free man and I’m in here and it’s quite selfish of him to worry about himself so much that he has no time for me. I miss our talks about art. I should think he misses them, too; he doesn’t have so many friends, you know; he’s not generally a lovable person.”

  “Perhaps he’ll come back.” Sabrina stood up again, anxious to leave. Her heart was pounding. Nicholas. Nicholas, who had tried twice to wrest Ambassadors from her and had been worried about her looking too closely at the finances of Ambassadors and Blackford’s . . . Nicholas might have known about the forgeries, might have joined forces with Rory and Ivan to add to his income and then decided to kill Max if Max had threatened to expose him.

  No. He isn’t smart enough, she thought. Also, he’s a coward.

  But he knows something. He must, or why would he have come here? Why would fastidious, self-centered Nicholas have come to Wormwood Scrubs Prison month after month to talk about art with Rory Carr?

  She started to ask Carr if Nicholas had worked with him, but changed her mind. It would be best to go to Nicholas.

  “No one comes back,” said Carr mournfully. “No one cares. And Max isn’t alive. No one could have survived that bomb. The police said the same thing, you know; no one could have survived.”

  “Goodbye, Rory.” Following a guard, Sabrina hurried through the prison to the cold sunshine outside, the clear air, the distant horizon. She drove to a hotel where Stephanie waited, and while she told Stephanie about the conversation she changed into black slacks and a black sweater while Stephanie put on the blue and green plaid suit, the blue hat, the leather gloves. “He’s terrified,” Sabrina said. “I’d guess Ivan will be, too. And if he doesn’t mention Nicholas, be sure you do.” And then she waited for Stephanie to return.

  It was almost an hour before she did. “He’s mean and stupid,” Stephanie said contemptuously. “And he looks like a ferret or a weasel or whatever they are: as thin as a rope and he slinks; he almost bends around corners. Why would Max have anything to do with him?”

  “I gather he was efficient. Did he say anything about Nicholas?”

  “He talked about everybody but himself. Can’t we talk in the car? I really want to get out of here.”

  “Give me a minute.” Sabrina twisted her hair on top of her head and pulled on a black hat with a floppy brim that left only her long, graceful neck exposed. She fastened a black fur-lined cape at her throat and put on oversize dark glasses. She and Stephanie stood before the mirror while Stephanie applied more lipstick, combed her hair so that it fell loosely over her shoulders and down her back, and adjusted the small blue hat at a sharp angle, leaving her face free. “Pretty good,” Sabrina said, looking at their distinct images with approval. “I’ll pick you up in front in about twenty minutes.”

  Dressing up and playacting, she thought as she went to a taxi stand and directed the driver to take her to the hotel. For all the seriousness of what they were doing, and the deadly crime at the core of it, they were having fun, like children playing a game. Having an adventure. Doing something for a lark. A shiver went through her. Just this time. We won’t do it again. Whatever happens, after this we’ll never playact anymore.

  Stephanie was waiting in front of the hotel, and stepped quickly into the taxi as it pulled up. “I never want to go to a prison again,” she said as the driver turned around for the drive back to Cadogan Square. “Nobody seemed to like anybody; most of them were blaming each other for everything.”

  “You mean Ivan?”

  “Everybody. The prisoners blamed their families and the families blamed the prisoners, and they all blamed somebody else for whatever they’d done, like the landlord or the police or the foreman at the factory . . . Oh, Lord, what an unhappy place. It makes me feel so lucky . . .”

  “Yes.” They fell silent and only began talking again when they reached the green expanse of Kensington Gardens, alive with the cheerful voices of children playing, and turned onto Gloucester Road to go home. “Did Ivan say anything about Nicholas?” Sabrina asked.

  “Mostly he blamed everything on Rory Carr. He said no one could deal with him. I said that Max had, and he said Rory did Max’s bidding, and I said, ‘Except when he planted the bomb under his stateroom,’ and he said—”

  “Did you really? That’s exactly what I said. What did he say about Nicholas?”

  “That he didn’t come to visit anymore. Amelia left him, he said, and he’s got financial problems, but it’s a dirty trick to think only of himself and let Ivan rot. I was going to ask him if Nicholas had worked with them—could that be possible? It seems incredible to me—but I thought if they did work together they could still get in touch, and why let Ivan know I was even thinking that?”

  “Yes, that’s what I thought. And I just wanted to get out of there.”

  “Let’s go see Nicholas, shall we? Right now.” Stephanie saw Sabrina smile and she laughed a little self-consciously. “I know how it sounds—like somebody on a hunt—but that’s how I feel, and now we have a new clue and I can’t wait to do something about it.”

  Sabrina looked at her watch. “He usually leaves at three. We’d better wait till morning. Do you want to be the one to talk to him?”

  “I don’t know. We should think about what we’ll say.”

  “Maybe . . .” Sabrina smiled to herself. “Maybe we should take turns. Shake him up a little.”

  “Would it? Maybe we should.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. It was just a thought. Another game.”

  They turned to look at each other. “We’re getting so good at them,” Stephanie said.

  “Yes.” In a minute Sabrina leaned forward. “There used to be a little grocery store here, but I don’t see it; I guess we’ll go to Harrods.”

  “What for?”

  “Dinner. We didn’t buy enough yesterday.”

  “Oh, Sabrina, can’t we go out? There must be lots of places in London where nobody knew you and it won’t mean anything to them if they see us together. Please, can’t we?”

  “I thought the whole idea was that we wouldn’t be seen together.”

  “I know, but now that we’re here it doesn’t seem that anything could hurt us. Doesn’t it seem that way to you? I know that Max was killed, probably by somebody from here, but that doesn’t really mean we’re in danger.”

  “I think we could be.”

  “Well, maybe. It’s hard to believe, though, when everything is so normal, people going about their business . . . What do you think could happen? Do you think someone is going to shoot us if he sees us together?”

  “I don’t know. But that part of it isn’t a game. You saw Max get killed, Stephanie; whoever caused that to happen
isn’t a normal person just going about his business; he’s somebody who thinks he has to kill to protect himself. Do you really want him to know Sabrina Longworth is alive?”

  Stephanie was silent. “Well.” She sighed. “I just thought it would be nice to go out together. It’s fun to playact, but it’s been so long since we did things together, and I was thinking that we might not be together like this again . . . at least, not for quite a while.”

  “Oh. Well, we’ll think about it. I suppose we could go out of town. Maybe tomorrow night. First we have to decide what we’re going to say to Nicholas.”

  At dinner in the sitting room, before the fire, they wrote out questions and practiced asking them, as if they were rehearsing a play. But the next morning, when Stephanie walked into Blackford’s, Nicholas gave her no chance to ask any of them.

  He came to greet her, bouncing on his small feet, hands outstretched, a merry smile on his face that did not reach his eyes. “My dear Stephanie, what a surprise, a splendid surprise, to be sure, but still . . . why didn’t you let me know you were coming? I would have arranged a festive board at the Savoy to make up for last time.”

  Stephanie gazed at him, frowning slightly; she had no idea what he was talking about.

  “Well, of course you would prefer to forget it; I assure you, so would I. Believe me, Stephanie, never have I done anything like that. To walk away and leave a woman alone in a restaurant . . . good Lord, it twists like a knife inside me whenever I think about it. You have my apology, my heartfelt, agonized apology; I can’t imagine how I could have done it; it’s not in my character—but of course you know that; we’ve been good friends since your dear sister left us, and you know it is not my way to do such things. Well, now we can put that behind us and go on as before. Let me show you what I’ve done with the shop . . . a few new pieces, not as many as I’d like, but the economy, you know, and a slow summer—”