“That must be Newfoundland,” a woman’s voice says.
I turn and take in the blonde woman in the seat next to me, with an airline magazine open at the map page on her lap.
“Hello, calling Matt Wells,” she says, with a tight smile. “Anyone at home?”
“Sorry,” I hear myself say. “Pretty desolate country down there.”
She laughs and her stern face is transformed. “You’d love it, Matt. Think how much work you could get done. No distractions, no nights in the pub, no me.”
“No you?” I say. “I don’t like the sound of that.”
She gives my ribs a solid jab with her elbow. “Aw, Matt, that’s almost the nicest thing you ever said to me.”
“Is that right? What’s number one in that chart?”
She feigns deep thought. “Well, I suppose it would have to be the time you admitted you were wrong and I was right.”
“I don’t remember that.”
My ribs take some more punishment.
“What a surprise.” She looks into my eyes. “No, seriously, Matt. It would be the first time you told me you loved me.”
“I don’t remember that, either.” This time I gasped as her elbow made even heavier contact. “Shit! All right, I do. It was the night I took you back to my place, unzipped your-”
“Stop it,” she said, looking around. “We aren’t alone.”
“Oh, forgive me,” I say, with exaggerated subservience. “How could I behave in such an inappropriate way with a senior member of her majesty’s Metropolitan Police force?”
“Kindly call me by my rank,” she says, a smile quivering on her lips.
“Forgive me-Detective Chief Superintendent.”
She relaxes. “That’s more like it.”
I give her a haughty look. “Now it’s your turn to call me by my rank. That’s more like it, sir.”
She laughs. “Sir! You’re just an ordinary member of the public. Why should I address you like you’re my superior?”
“Em, because I am?” I reply. “Intellectually, morally, physically…”
“Now you’re just being childish,” she says, opening a folder. “I’ve got work to do.” Her expression is severe, but I can see she’s suppressing laughter.
“Bullshit,” I say, my elbow extracting overdue retribution from her ribs. “You’ve read your case notes at least twice since we left London. You must know Gavin Burdett’s activities off by heart.”
She gives me a warning glare. “Keep your voice down,” she says, in a loud whisper. “You know how sensitive this is.”
And suddenly my memory supplies the relevant information. Gavin Burdett-British investment banker, Eton and Cambridge-he has extensive contacts with American business and specializes in burying funds in untraceable offshore accounts. And the woman next to me has found the evidence to nail him. Since she was promoted to run the corporate-crime team at the Met, high-profile business figures have been falling like ninepins. No one expected a violent-crime expert to be so effective in the most complex investigation branch, but in her first year she’s really shown her mettle.
She puts down the folder and sighs. “You’re right, Matt. But this is the big one. If we nail Burdett, the way will be open for us to nail corrupt companies all over the world.”
“If you nail Burdett,” I say. “What’s the name of the company you think he’s connected with in the States?”
“Woodbridge Holdings. If we can put the squeeze on it, that’ll really impress the politicians. Woodbridge has got international media interests, as well as subsidiary companies all over the place. They’re into everything from logging to high tech, radio stations and newspapers to pharmacological research and development.”
“Yeah, but lobbyists are already working on their behalf in Washington and London, aren’t they?”
She nods. “Which is why this trip’s so important. You know the hoops I had to jump through to get the commissioner to sign off on it.”
I smile. “Jumping hoops… Were you in full-dress uniform?”
Her eyes burn into mine. “Behave yourself,” she says primly. “You’re right, Matt. There are people in Congress under Woodbridge’s thumb. American jobs are at stake and you know how important they are, given the state of the global economy.”
“I don’t suppose it’s impossible that they’ve got friends in the Justice Department and the FBI, too.”
“True. But I think Levon Creamer is solid enough.”
“Crazy name,” I say, accepting a food tray from the stewardess.
“Yes, but he’s head of Financial Crime at the Bureau. He’s the one who got me the meeting with the politicians.”
I’m unable to stifle a yawn. That gets me another nudge.
“Sorry if I’m boring you.” She concentrates on unwrapping her scone. “Of course, your business in Washington is much more important.”
I spread clotted cream on the jam I’ve already smothered over my scone. “Oh, no, it’s just a minor project-international crime during the Cold War, illegalities at the highest levels of government, assassinations, regime change…”
“Quite,” she says. “Of course, there isn’t any hard evidence.”
I raise a finger. “That’s where you’re wrong, my dear. Joe Greenbaum is an expert in the field.”
“And he’s going to open his files to you, free of charge?”
I shrug. “Well, I can offer him a small consideration. And some information of my own in exchange.”
Her gaze locks with mine. “I hope you haven’t sneaked a look at my Burdett files.”
I shake my head. “Certainly not. But I’d advise you against leaving them open in my flat. The cleaner might be an undercover agent.”
She stares at me. “You haven’t got a cleaner.”
“What do you mean? I clean every Tuesday afternoon-” I gasp. “Ow, that hurt.”
She laughs. “Serves you right.”
I’m laughing, too.
But I still can’t remember her name…
“Matt! Matt!”
I moved my head and almost threw up. Opening my eyes wasn’t any more enjoyable. My vision was blurred.
“Matt? Are you all right?”
Mary Upson’s face swam into view to my left, blood on her forehead.
“Yeah,” I said, pushing myself up from the steering wheel. “What happened?”
“Never mind that. Let’s get you out.” She put her arm round me and pulled me out of the pickup. I slumped down on the bumper in the vehicle’s headlights. “Let’s have a look.” Her fingers were on my face. “Your forehead’s bruised, but the skin isn’t broken.” She raised a hand to her temple. “Unlike mine.”
“We might both be concussed,” I mumbled.
She nodded. “Have you got pain anywhere else? Ribs? Chest?”
I touched myself gingerly. “No, I think I’m in one piece.”
Mary sat down beside me. “You were lucky. Do you remember anything?”
“Not much.” I was thinking about the blonde woman on the plane. Where was she now?
“It was like you had a fit,” Mary said. “You started shaking and your eyes were rolling. You’re not epileptic, are you?”
I shook my head, which was a bad idea. Then I had a vision of the camp. Had I really been tied to a stake to face a firing squad? The woman I’d remembered-Jesus, had she been imprisoned, too?
“Matt?”
I glanced at Mary, my mouth slack. They’d put me under a machine; they’d messed with my brain. Had anything I remembered really happened? Or was it just the tip of a very large iceberg?
“What is it, Matt?” Mary shook my arm.
They messed with my brain, I told myself again. They screwed up my mind. But I was fighting it. I wasn’t going to let them drag me down.
“Matt!”
I shuddered and then got a grip on myself. The blonde woman on the plane, my lover, the senior police officer-the one who’d disappeared in the Shenandoah V
alley. She had meetings in Washington. The answers had to be there.
“Is the pickup okay?” I asked, getting to my feet unsteadily.
“The nearside front tire hit a rock. That was what made our heads whip forward. It’s flat. The spare’s in good shape. You stay here.”
By the time she’d finished, I already felt better.
“I’m driving,” Mary said, in a tone that didn’t invite contradiction.
I waited while she started the engine, then I gave the pickup a shove. The rear tires gripped on the gravel and we were back in business.
“There’s a small town about ten miles ahead,” Mary said.
As we drove on, a gray light began to spread from the east. The tips of the trees took on a brighter hue of green and birds flew across the road. The trees began to thin and we ran down toward a narrow lake. The road took a sharp turn to the right before the shoreline.
The state trooper had set his roadblock about thirty yards after the bend. By the time Mary braked, we were almost on top of it. I didn’t have any time to duck down, let alone slip out of the pickup.
All I could do was rack the slide of my Glock and prepare for action.
Twenty-Four
“You boys want to tell me just what the hell is going on in this city?” Chief Rodney Owen said, looking around the top-floor room where early-morning sunlight was glinting through the windows and Abraham Singer’s body lay still.
Detective Simmons glanced at his partner. Gerard Pinker wasn’t showing much interest in replying. Two CSIs were working on different parts of the room, doing their best to appear cloth-eared.
“Well, sir,” Simmons said, “the indications are that this murder is linked to the previous two.”
“The indications being the piece of paper with the boxes drawn on it,” Owen said.
Simmons nodded. “And the M.O.”
The three men looked at the paper that had been attached to the victim’s back with carpentry nails.
“It looks like the paper and ink will match the previous sheets,” Pinker said. “The squares and rectangles are not in the same pattern, just as with the first and second ones, but they’re broadly similar.”
The chief nodded. “Go on.”
“Then there’s the M.O. This vic was killed by the insertion of wooden-handled skewers into each eye. The skewers match the Loki and Monsieur Hexie murders.”
“Sweet Jesus,” Owen said, shaking his head. “What does it mean, Clem?”
“We’re working on that.”
“Meaning, you’re hoping the Bureau’s experts come up with something.”
Simmons raised his shoulders. “They’ve got the ‘database.’” He recalled the first view he’d had of the old professor. He was lying on his front, the familiar transparent plastic file containing the piece of paper pinned to his back. Observing Marion Gilbert and her assistant as they turned the body over had not been pleasant.
“Any witnesses?” Chief Owen asked. “Who found the body?”
Pinker tugged on his cuffs and opened his notebook. “Another professor, name of Albert Rudenstein. He saw the vic’s lights still on and came up. That was just after midnight. Rudenstein had been at a faculty dinner. No witnesses to an intruder so far. Apparently Professor Singer was often the last to leave. Apart from him, there was only a graduate student called Lawrence Jones in the building after seven last night, and he was gone by eight. He didn’t notice anyone or anything out of the ordinary.”
Rodney Owen was examining at the dark stains on the floorboards. “What does the M.E. think about time of death?”
Simmons glanced at his notes. “Provisionally, between nine and eleven.”
“I don’t see any sign of a struggle,” the chief said.
Pinker had moved over to the victim’s desk. “No, Professor Rudenstein said he didn’t see anything out of place or missing. Not that we thought it was a burglary.”
“What was this Singer’s field of expertise?” Owen asked.
“Jewish culture.”
“Oh, shit,” the chief said, with a scowl. “Now every Jew in D.C. is going to be on my back.” He glanced at Simmons. “Please don’t tell me we’ve got an anti-Semitic serial killer on our hands, Clem.”
The detective rubbed his cheek. “If he is, he’s also anti-black and anti-thrash metal.”
“Well, I can understand the second of those. The Loki murder doesn’t fit the pattern in that respect. I mean, where does a long-haired, white vic come in?”
“Search me, boss,” Pinker said, peering at the papers on the desk. “Jeez, this guy had small writing. I can hardly make out a word of it.”
“Well, you better get used to it,” the chief said. “Until we find out otherwise, the professor’s specialization has to be our focus. What exactly was he working on?”
Pinker turned over the book that was lying open. “This is called De Occulta Philosophia, whatever that means.” His major at college had been criminology.
Simmons swallowed a laugh. “On Occult Philosophy?” he hazarded.
“Not one of your voodoo books, is it?” Pinker smile sardonically. His partner hadn’t been able to find anything linking Monsieur Hexie’s death to his interest in the religion.
“Cool it, you two,” their boss ordered. “That’ll really get the tabloids going, another occult link. We’ve already had articles about witches’ covens in Congress and satanic rituals beneath the Washington Memorial.” He buttoned up his raincoat. “I’m going back to the office. See if I can keep dodging the bullets.” He looked at each of his men. “You two need to find a good lead, and soon. Or the Feds will take over all three cases.”
The detectives watched him leave.
“Fuck this shit,” Versace said, in a low voice. “This guy’s running rings around us, Clem.”
“Just as well there’s no woman in your life these days, eh, Vers? Since these murders started, you haven’t had time to unzip your very expensive flies.”
The smaller man gave his partner a scornful look. “When did you last get any, my man?” Then his expression changed. “Aw, shit. I’m sorry.” Simmons’s wife, Nina, had died of cancer a year earlier. They had been like a normal couple, with none of the strains of most police marriages. Pinker knew that Clem had never got the hots for another woman when Nina was alive, and he probably never would now she was gone.
“Forget it, Vers.” Simmons headed for the door.
They met Dana Maltravers on the stair.
“Ah, Detectives,” she said, enthusiastically, “I was hoping you could give me an update.”
Gerard Pinker ran his eye over the young woman. Beneath the dark blue FBI jacket, her body was trim, and curved in all the right places. He might have made a move, but he knew he would never live it down at the MPDC building. Feds were the enemy, strictly off-limits.
“You were here a couple of hours ago,” Simmons said, with a soft smile. “What do you think’s happened since then, Special Agent?” He brushed past her, his partner close behind.
Maltravers followed them downstairs. “Tracked down any witnesses, Detective? How about you, Versace?”
The detective froze. His nickname was not for public use.
Dana Maltravers immediately realized her mistake. “I mean, Detective Pinker.”
“Yes, you do mean Detective Pinker. Tell you what, you tell me your nickname and I’ll think about letting you use mine.”
The agent’s cheeks reddened. “Oh, I don’t think…”
“Come on now,” Pinker said. Special Agent Maltravers is quite a mouthful.” He laughed. “So to speak.”
The young woman didn’t acknowledge the double entendre.
“Okay, what’s Sebastian’s handle?”
“I can’t tell you that, Detective.”
“Oh, well, there goes that update.”
They had reached the hall inside the building’s main door.
“Is that what you mean by inter-agency cooperation, Vers?” Simmons said. �
��I don’t think the chief would approve.”
Gerard Pinker looked at him as if he were a traitor. “I just think that knowing our colleagues’ nicknames would make cooperation so much easier.”
“Oh, all right,” Maltravers said, looking away. “I’m known as Princess and he’s called Dick-behind his back only, of course.”
“Princess?” Pinker said. “Yeah, I suppose you do look kinda like that Diana woman. Apart from the hair color.”
“Dick?” Simmons said. “By any chance, would that be followed by head?”
“So you are a detective after all,” Dana Maltravers said, her eyes still averted despite her smile.
“Dick,” Pinker guffawed. “I like it. Where is the man in question, by the way?”
“On his way back from Maine. He should be here soon.”
Pinker’s expression became more serious. “You realize the English guy Matt Wells has to be in the clear for this murder-assuming that was him up in lobster-and-moose land.”
Maltravers nodded. “I’ve checked the airport security films. He wasn’t in Reagan National. He would have really had to move to get up there by rail or car.”
“Is it theoretically possible?” Simmons asked.
She nodded. “Yes, at least by train. Our people are looking at the Union Station films. Driving would be a real tester-it’s over seven hundred miles.”
“And why would he bother?” Pinker asked.
Simmons rubbed his chin. “But Wells is still in the frame for the Monsieur Hexie murder. He could have done Loki, as well, without leaving any prints there.”
“Or he could have planned the Loki killing and the latest one,” Maltravers said.
“You’ve really got a hard-on for him, Princess,” Pinker said. “I checked our files. He reported his girlfriend’s disappearance back in late August, and then he vanished himself a couple of weeks later. Why suddenly turn into a killer?”
Maltravers stepped closer as a CSI walked past. “Maybe you didn’t read the background documentation I sent over. He’s killed before-in London.”
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