by Gregg Loomis
She reopened the closet door, took the orange bag off the top shelf and reached inside. She pulled out the Hermes gold swift leather Toolbox, the one Livia had had with her when they had first gone to downtown Nassau, the one she’d had at the museum. Celeste had warned her it might be wiser to choose a bag with a shoulder strap to frustrate purse snatchers and pick pockets but Livia had laughed that Livia laugh she had when Celeste had urged caution.
“He who steals my purse,” she had quoted, “steals trash. ‘Tis something, nothing. ‘Twas mine, ‘tis his.”
Easy enough for you to say, Celeste had thought. “You or anyone else who has a high six figure income from a trust fund.”
She regretted the jealously tinged thought, glad she had not given it voice. Besides, how many people could quote Iago’s speech to Othello? Damn few she met could enunciate their own thoughts, let alone Shakespeare’s.
Almost without thought, she caressed the soft leather.
And stopped.
What was. . .?
She reached inside, unzipping compartments, feeling her way. What was this? She fumbled around, found a hidden interior zipper. Almost a secret compartment, certainly one unfamiliar with the purse would not notice. She reached inside.
She stared at what she held in her hand, certain the stress of grief had made her mind play tricks on her.
Livia had promised to give up a compulsion for artifacts of famous murders that drove her to near kleptomania. Sure, she had bought some from E Bay. But not what Celeste now held. This one may well have gotten Livia killed.
God! Why had not Celeste anticipated this !
But what was it exactly? A piece of cardboard, maybe eight by ten inches, creased from having been folded and with what Celeste characterized as slits cut in it at irregular intervals. She had no idea what it was nor of its function but she was certain it had to do with a seventy year old murder mistery.
And witth the murder of Livia.
35.
Cavanaugh House
“Well, blimie!” Timmy said with feigned surprise, “If it ain’t our ole pal from Nassau and Atlanta, Mr. Lang Reilly!”
There was menace in broken nose’s grin. “How fortunate, seein’ as how we owe him.”
He turned the key, took a step and aimed a kick at Lang’s groin. Lang spun in time to avoid a direct hit, grabbing the foot with both hands. He heaved upward, sending Broken Nose sprawling.
The Sig Sauer thumped on the floor and Lang made a dive for it, his momentum slowed by the room’s Oriental rug. His fingers were closing around the grip when his head seemed to explode, leaving his ears ringing and dots spinning in front of his eyes.
“One more of your tricks, Reilly, and your friends die.”
It was only then he realized Timmy had done what Broken Nose had not: Landed a strong kick, this time to Lang’s head.
Lang used a chair to leverage himself to his feet. “That’s what you intend anyway, to make sure we die, right?”
The glance the two intruders exchanged answered the question but Timmy said, “Remains to be seen.” He gestured with the pistol. “Now, why don’t you gentlemen have seats?”
Isaacs sat uneasily behind his desk.
Broken nose shoved him aside and opened the center drawer before looking beneath it.
“Wouldn’t do to have our little party interrupted by a gun in the drawer or a button that signals someone, would it?”
Satisfied there were no weapons or means of communication, he let the Marquess return to his seat.
“Now, then, gentlemen,” Timmy began, standing next to him, “there’s the matter of a certain exhibit in the library in Nassau, Bahamas.”
Isaacs wrinkled his forehead. “What the hell are you talking about?”
His answer was a slap across the face that sent him sprawling.
Lang stood. “Hey, there’s no need. . .”
The muzzle of Timmy’s pistol swung around to center on Lang’s forehead. “I’m the one who decides what’s needed here, Reilly.”
Lang sat back down. Had he seen Jacob actually move his chair toward the far wall while the Marquess occupied the Timmy and Broken Nose’s attention?
“And you, Reilly, you know fuckin’ well what I’m talking about.”
“All I know is a young woman went missing shortly after visiting the library you mentioned. She was subsequently found drowned in circumstances that were questionable at best.”
The answer was rewarded with a blow to the face with the muzzle of Timmy’s gun that knocked Lang out of his chair. He felt something warm running down his neck. Blood? The delayed pain along his jaw confirmed his suspicion.
He pretended to be stunned, having a hard time getting his senses back. As he had spun from the blow, he was certain Jacob had edged closer to the wall. Whatever his friend had in mind, Lang intended to divert as much attention away from Jacob as possible.
Timmy parked his rear on the edge of the desk. “Now, let’s begin again: Exactly what is your interest in a murder seventy years ago?”
“Murder?” Isaacs asked, truthfully puzzled. “All I was asked to was ask around, maybe help these two gentlemen find out if there was some sort of off the books op going on, perhaps involving British intel personnel and a military branch such as SAS.”
Timmy now faced Lang. “What made you think someone from MI6 was involved?”
You are the only one here that mentioned MI6 specifically, Lang thought. But he said, “Just a guess.”
Broken Nose stepped away from the wall against which he had been leaning. “Let’s quit faffin’ about and get this over, doesn’t matter who knew what if they’re dead. Just go ahead and. . .”
“Just keep those hands where I can see them,” Jacob’s voice interrupted.
Lang turned to see Jacob standing in front of the rosette of antiques arms, a blunderbuss in hand.
“Put that down!” Broken Nose commanded. “You gone round the bend?”
The Sig Sauer swung toward Jacob.
Later, Lang doubted Broken Nose ever heard the answer to the question, an explosion, that, in the confines of the room, might as well have been a cannon. A mist of black powder smoke seared his nose with the odor of burned sulfur, an powder ingredient not used in contemporary firearms in over sixty years.
Ears ringing again, it took an instant to recognize the bloody pulp that had been Broken Nose as human. Part of what had been him was literally dripping from what was left of the shattered windows and splattered on the shot-pocked wall like a child’s random streaks of finger paint.
The boom of the old gun had frozen everyone like film stuck in a projector. Timmy recovered enough to send a bullet coughing through the sound suppressor in Lang’s direction.
But Lang was not where he had been. Rather than waste valuable seconds hoping to find Broken Nose’s weapon, he made a dive for the remaining antagonist.
He missed. Timmy side-stepped, leaving Lang on the floor, struggling to regain his feet.
He took careful aim as Lang had little alternative but stare down the hole in the bulbous silencer of the Sig Sauer not five feet away.
As is often the case in extreme peril, Lang’s mind presented the world to him in slow motion. Too close to miss, too far to reach; you’re truly fucked, the words of a long ago close combat instructor at Camp Peary, the agency’s training center outside Williamsburg, came as clearly as though the man were standing in the room.
Can’t give up. . . One more try.
Lang was gathering himself for one more –if futile-try when Timmy’s head suddenly leaned at an impossible angle and was instantly covered by a geyser of blood. His face took on an expression as though studying a perplexing problem before his body seemed to turn to liquid in the smoothness with which it poured onto a crimson-soaked carpet.
In his place, Jacob stood, halberd held in both hands. It’s ax-like blade dripped gore. Lang’s eyes went from the weapon to the body on the floor. Timmy’s head was by far more of
f than on, near severed by a single gushing slice.
“Guess I’ll never make it as the crown’s headsman,” Jacob said calmly, dropping the halberd. “Far too messy.”
Lang chocked back the lunch that was trying to work his way back up his throat, undeterred by the graveyard humor.
The room looked as though someone had been butchering cattle: blood on the walls, windows, even the ceiling. Blood on the chairs, desk. . .
Desk?
Two steps took Lang to the contemporary desk. Its clear top was bloody, too. A very pale Marquess was slumped in the chair behind it, his shirt a soaked crimson.
As Lang touched the man’s neck. The carotid artery was weak, perhaps getting weaker.
Lang ripped off the man’s shirt in search of the wound. It was not hard to find: a gaping hole just under the sternum.
“Part of the shot from the blunderbuss. . .?”
Lang had not noticed Jacob come up from behind him, now peering over his shoulder. He nodded toward the near headless body on the floor. “Tear off his shirt in strips. We need to try to stop the bleeding.”
The sound of ripping cloth almost hid Isaac’s weak voice. Lang put his ear to the man’s mouth.
“MI6. . . Those men are MI6. . .”
“You think they were with MI6?”
A feeble shake of the head. “Know they were. Visited some old chums. . . Albert Embankment. . . Saw them there. Recognized. . .”
Lang pressed the strips of torn shirt against the wound. “Call 999. We need an ambulance.”
Before Jacob had the cell phone out of his pocket, there was the sound of someone twisting the knob of the locked door, followed by a fist pounding on the solid wood. Open up! Police!”
Jacob and Lang exchanged glances.
Jacob returned the phone to his pocket as Lang observed,. “Now that is what I call service!”
Isaacs tugged gently at Lang’s sleeve, pointing toward the far wall. He was trying to say something Lang couldn’t hear. All he saw was small door.
Jacob nodded toward it. “Follow me.”
“But the Marquess. . .”
“The coppers will take care of him better than we could.” He waved a hand at the gory room. “And I don’t think you want to try to explain all of this. Come along now.”
Reluctantly, Lang followed his friend as he opened the door to what appeared to be a small linen closet.
36.
12 Brays Lane
Ely, Cambridgeshire
Earlier That Day
DCI (Detective Chief Inspector) Gerald “Jerry” Grove had been with the Major Crime Unit of East Anglia since it had been organized a year ago in a nation-wide effort to combat increasing crime in Great Brittan’s rural areas. Serving Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex and Cambridgeshire, the organization consisted of about sixty officers with stations in Cambridge, Norwich and Ely and single man stations in several smaller villages such as Swaffham, Lavengham and Great Yarmouth.
Grove had been sipping his second cup of breakfast tea as he alternately read a report of the theft of twenty of so lambs and watched the morning sunlight paint the towers of Ely’s great Norman church that raised up from the flatness of the Fens like the masts of a sailing ship above the sea. His solitude was shattered when young constable Eddy Layne had announced the DCI had a telephone call. Not just any call but one from an Inspector Dylan Fitzwilliam of the London Metro Police.
It wasn’t every day-or every year for that matter- that Scotland Yard wanted to chat up a rural police officer.
Grove hurriedly put down both his tea and the report.
The request was not unusual: More of the crime of urban areas rippling the otherwise placid waters of East Anglia. Some American, name of Reilly, was thought to be in the area. Make that known to be in the area. Diving a rented Audi. Yes, Fitzwilliam had the plate number and read it off. No, no need to arrest the man or the British citizen with him.
Then, why. . .?
Fitzwilliam had sighed audibly. Reilly was suspected, only suspected, mind you, of involvement of a number of rather violent deaths. All Fitzwilliam had said was that wherever Reilly went, trouble followed.
Did he have any specifics as to Reilly’s location?
Only he had left Burnham Market shortly after the local constabulary had found a motorcyclist dead amid bricks strewn up and down the road.
No, nothing in particular pointed to the American other than his proximity to a rather violent death.
Grove went back to his report and tea. Somehow, missing lambs no longer interested him and the tea was cold.
Then, a few hours later, a call had come in from a near hysterical woman, one of the people who worked with tourists visiting Cavanaugh House. Two rough looking men, it seemed, had forced their way past her and headed up toward the Marquess’s private quarters without so much a by your leave. She was quite certain they had been neither invited nor expected.
Would one of them be named Lang Reilly, an American?
They didn’t bother to give their names but Mr. Reilly and another gentlemen had arrived earlier, were with the Marquess right now.
Perhaps it was some sixth sense; maybe missing sheep weren’t as interesting this American sounded. Either way, Grove requisitioned two uniformed constables, three ASP batons and three SA80, gas operated automatic assault rifles and a marked car.
In sixteen years of police work he had never seen anything remotely resembling what he guessed was the Marquess’ study or office. He had never imagined the human body contained that volume of blood, some still leaking from body parts of what he guessed had been a single person. Another, all but decapitated, looked more like one of the more gruesome exhibits he had seen in Madam Tussaud’s Wax Museum in London.
He could hear the younger of the two uniforms retching outside in the hall.
From the limited words the Marquess was able to utter before the helicopter rushed him to the hospital, the two men had attempted a robbery and the Marquess had defended himself.
As remarkable as it was unbelievable.
He had literally blown one apart with an Eighteenth Century blunderbuss while wielding a halberd with deadly skill. No explanation as to how he, the Marques, had been wounded but someone had applied a rudimentary bandage that had probably saved the man’s life. The wound itself was bigger than would have been inflicted by any weapon Grove could imagine.
And none of that was the most puzzling.
The big question was, where had Reilly and his companion gone?
The woman downstairs was positive she had not seen them leave although the only unlocked exit was just past the place she sold tickets.
The only clue was a set of partial foot prints. Someone had stepped in one of the pools of blood and tracked it to a door that, as far as Grove could tell, opened only into a small linen closet.
37.
Norwich International Airport
Hellsdon
An Hour Later
Lang was relieved to turn the Audi in even paying the fee for not returning it at Heathrow. Without argument, he signed the sheet admitting damage to the car’s left side and mirror. He had little doubt the local, if not national, police would be looking for him and Jacob after the abattoir at Cavanaugh House and the car’s tag, easily ascertained from the rental company or Hoste Inn, became the subject of an alert.
Besides, a man with half of his face bandaged drew stares.
Jacob disagreed, at least as far as Lang’s fear the law would be looking for them. His wounded face was hardly debatable. “Isaacs will cover our arses, Lang,” he insisted. “No way he’ll tell the coppers those cheeky bastards were after us.”
“After me,” Lang corrected.
Jacob cocked his head as he started the Morris. “And what’s the odds they would have let anyone walk out of there?”
There was no point in replying. Instead, Lang noted a number of buildings dating back to the airfield’s origin as a US Army Air Corps base. The runway, slightly o
ver six thousand feet, should be ample for the Gulfstream which should answer his summons in about eight hours.
In the meantime, he needed to stay out of sight.
A quick trip to a stall in the men’s WC in the modest one story terminal building allowed him to change out of his blood-splattered clothing and into the pants and shirt he had worn yesterday. He stuffed the stained ones into the trash bin under the paper towel dispenser. For the moment, cloth from a shirt would have to suffice to staunch the bleeding of the cut along his jaw. With any luck, he would be halfway across the Atlantic before he was discovered.
Now, for a place to stay while he awaited the Gulfstream’s arrival.
Fortunately, Norwich, about three miles distant, was regarded as one of the best preserved cities in Britain. First fortified by the Saxons in the Ninth Century, it still had the irregular street patterns of the time. Because of its fleece trade, it became second only to London as England’s most important city until the time of the Industrial Revolution. The Elm Hill district boasts some of the finest medieval cobbled streets in the country. Consequently, the town is a tourist attraction, though hardly internationally known.
He had no trouble spotting the sign with a green cross with “pharmacy” underneath. The clerk could not keep his eyes from Lang’s face as he rang up purchases,
“Stood too close to my razor,” Lang said, deadpan.
Little doubt the man would remember him but it couldn’t be helped.
On Jacob’s suggestion, Lang chose The Wedgewood House, a vaguely Victorian structure in the downtown area.
“You’ll blend in fine,” he said as Lang climbed out of the car. “When your plane arrives, have the hotel call a taxi to take you out to the airport.”
Walking around to the driver’s side, Lang reached through the open window to put a hand on his fiend’s shoulder. “What about you? The cops are going to want to talk to you.”
Jacob shrugged as he put the car in gear. “Perhaps. They won’t get our names from the Marquess, I can assure you.”
