“Weren’t we going to drink to our reunion?” Anna said, with more bravado than she felt.
But before Marina could turn her answering hiss into words or a shot, a cheerful British voice boomed next to them, making them both jump. “Mrs. Barton! What a coincidence, running into you in Rome!”
Where in the name of God had David come from? And what did he think he was doing? She was sure she looked as shocked as Marina did.
“What—?” Fury and fear vied for prominence in Marina’s widened eyes, but she regained control and looked up with cool detachment. “Mr. Wainwright, isn’t it? The director? You have surprised me.”
As if remembering his manners, he turned to Anna. “Sorry to interrupt, Ms . . . ?”
“Jones,” she answered weakly. “Lisa Jones.” She felt suddenly dizzy. Good God, was she about to get David killed, too?
“Mind if I join you?” he asked, but he was already pulling out the chair next to Marina and opposite Anna. “I hope I’m not intruding, but I don’t know a soul in Rome, and this is such a coincidence!” He sounded chirpy and eager, an Englishman abroad thrilled to bump into someone from home.
“Why are you here?” Marina asked tersely. Anna could tell she was working at sounding normal, but it came out more Gestapo officer than grieving widow.
“Looking at location sites for a television series. And you?”
Marina sighed deeply, her right hand still hidden in the depths of her jacket’s voluminous sleeve. “London, Moscow.” She shook her head sadly. “So many memories of Pierre. When my friend Lisa called me to ask to meet in Rome for shopping, of course I said yes.”
“Please”—David gestured—“drink your drinks. Don’t wait for me. I’ll order something when the waiter comes.”
Anna raised the glass that had been Marina’s and faked a sip; she’d watched the other woman drink from it, but she was taking no chances. She sat barely breathing as Marina picked up the glass that had been Anna’s and raised it to her lips. Then she turned and let it slip from her grasp to shatter on the cobblestones, clear red liquid spreading in all directions. “Ach, blyad! Look what I’ve done.” Marina reached down with her left hand to push the large pieces of glass out of the way.
“Don’t!” Anna shouted but it was too late. Marina sat back up, her face drained of color. The hand she held up showed a trickle of red; she’d been nicked by the glass. “Oh, Anna.” She sounded regretful. “Tetrodotoxin. So I will die, too. You’ll be a murderer now. But you will die with me.” Anna looked immediately to Marina’s other hand and saw that the gun hadn’t been an empty threat.
Anna froze. David didn’t, but even as he reached out to grab Marina’s arm, a man had already sprung up from behind, a man who was not Andrew Barnes but the grappa drinker Anna had noticed in the café across the square. He barked something in rapid-fire Russian as he reached smoothly around and took the gun from Marina’s hand before anyone in the crowd had even noticed it. He pocketed it, then he pulled her gently but firmly back into her chair before removing his hat and nodding pleasantly to Anna and David, who were sinking shakily into their seats. The pale blond hair and icy blue eyes gave him away even if the bulbous prosthetic covered up his own distinctive nose. His other hand remained in his coat pocket.
“I was just telling Mrs. Barton I would have to shoot if she moved. I’ve been wanting to say that ever since I watched her push poor Olga onto the tracks.” He smiled his bright fake smile at Marina’s venomous look, then widened it to include Anna, drily continuing in his clipped British tones. “I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation. Thank you for clearing me of Pierre Barton’s murder, Ms. Wallingham. Much appreciated, I assure you. I take it you’re wearing a wire now? That’s what I’d have gone down for, you know: the death of poor Pierre.”
“But Marina! We need an ambulance. She’s dying!”
“Nonsense. She’s far from dying.” He shrugged. “A little cut. A little tetrodotoxin. Pffft. Our Marina is a chemist. She knows even with a normal dose, the victim has several hours to live. A speck in her bloodstream? She might feel slightly ill, but she’ll survive. Unlike the husband she most probably doped with enough to kill several men.”
Anna had to hand it to Marina. Her voice as she spoke to Komarov dripped with contempt, not fear. “Pierre always said, ‘That Kelm is a nasty piece of work.’ He knew you were rotten. But not me. I trusted you for the very reason I should have known better: I trusted you because you are Russian.” She sounded almost sad. “I despair of my own people. I truly do.”
Anna looked up to see Barnes emerging from inside the café, not looking especially pleased to have captured Pierre Barton’s killer. “How nice to see you, Andrew,” Anna said smartly. “You’ll want to mop up that liquid with something. And be careful with the broken glass. It’s swimming in tetrodotoxin.” But Hulk #1 was already there, swabbing up the spillage with gauze held in a rubber-gloved hand and sticking that and the broken glass into the small evidence bag he held. It was all done so smoothly, no one in the café was paying attention.
“You! Andrew?” Only the sight of Barnes made Marina lose her cool. “Who the hell are you?” She started to get up but was held in her seat by Grigoriy Komarov.
“You’re so clever you hired an MI6 agent to be your husband’s keeper,” Anna said, her voice trembling but triumphant. “He was the real thing, your Aleksei—only, not for your side.”
“Sorry, Anna.” Andrew sounded like one of those polite British film spies now. “I don’t know why she suspected we were ready for her at the other café.”
After a pause, Marina said, “You should know those of us genuinely from cold climates always seek the sun, fool.” Her voice was diminished now, as if she was just starting to grasp the prognosis of her situation.
Andrew smiled mildly. “Be nice to me and we’ll get you medical treatment.” She spat on the ground next to the table, then, with head held high, she let the Hulk escort her to the black Range Rover that had materialized in the pedestrian piazza.
“And now, my friends, I, too, must be on my way,” said Komarov, his voice still not betraying any accent other than well-bred English. “My role in this tiny farce has come to an end. I’ll just take my bag”—he picked up the Boots bag with the hand not in his pocket—“and move along. Whatever it is that Mrs. Barton hoped to pass off as YOUNGER I leave with you as a souvenir.”
“Not so fast,” Barnes said, the ferocity of his voice assuring Anna that Komarov was the big game he’d been chasing all along with this little scenario. The Russian just chuckled.
“Sorry, Mr. Barnes, but I worked very hard to win this formula for my country. And my gun is still in my hand. Right now it’s pointed at Ms. Wallingham, whom, as you heard, I just rescued from a would-be killer and who will now accompany me to the edge of the piazza. She’s beautiful at any age.” He smiled brightly. “It would be a shame to lose her. So this is indeed adieu.”
He gestured to Anna with his chin. “Come along now.” As she stood, David, too, started to get to his feet but sat down again when she shook her head at him.
She didn’t fear Komarov. He had no reason to kill her now. If anything, she was glad for a few minutes with him as they walked slowly across the piazza. “And my friend?” she asked without preamble. “Who killed Jan Berger?”
“Ah, your California friend hit by the car, yes? Not me, Miss Wallingham. If I were you, I would ask myself, Cui bono? Who profits? That’s most often where the answer lies.” They’d reached the sidewalk, where an Alfa Romeo sedan slid up beside them. He bowed formally and smiled. “It’s been a pleasure.”
The car, with Grigoriy Komarov inside it, drove off. Anna turned around and headed back toward the café as David ran to meet her.
“That’s it. He’s gone,” Anna told Barnes when she and David reached a different table at the café, where he sat waiting with three glasses of w
hite wine, a uniformed technician already kneeling by the other table to clear up the last remains of the broken glass and wash away the spillage while other security types spoke to the waiters.
“You already knew he’d be able to walk away. And why not? He was just a man walking out of a piazza in Rome carrying a Boots bag.” Andrew’s tone was unusually bitter, telling Anna how badly he had wanted to be able to seize Komarov for Pierre’s murder. Poor Pierre. At least he was the victim that counted. He gestured toward the larger shopping bag that was now by his feet. “He left us not only Marina’s fake products but also the sweater and wallet she picked up at Gucci and Prada. Nothing like a wee bit of retail therapy before murder, is there? Cold-blooded as they come, the Widow Barton. And you? Seeing her birthmark? Still keeping evidence from Secret Intelligence Service? Are you insane?”
“You heard everything? The wire never came loose completely?”
“I could hear you until David here chivalrously jumped up and ran out and I had to call for reinforcements and hope not to blow the whole op or have you both killed. I can understand his impulsiveness in trying to rescue you, but I’d like to hear your explanation for the little charade you planned unbeknownst to us, Anna.”
She took a long swallow of her wine. Her mouth was like cotton. What torture it had been avoiding the Campari and soda she’d been so sure Marina had poisoned. “Once I realized yesterday that she’d killed Olga, the pieces started falling into place. I figured she’d have to kill me at some point. I was a liability, wasn’t I?” She shrugged.
“But I knew damned well that if I didn’t do something, she might be the one waltzing out of here since you’d be in a great big hurry to grab Komarov,” she said, not defiantly but not apologetically, either. “That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it? Getting him for Pierre’s murder so you could take your nemesis out of the field? He did kill the Rusakovs, I suppose?”
Barnes frowned, but, like the pro he was, he swallowed his bitter medicine with good grace. “I’d say certain but hard to prove. In the car, I heard Pierre tell Marina you thought you’d been followed. We found Galina and Pavel and monitored their hotel room. I doubt they had a clue Marina had killed Olga, either. But she was a link to exploit, so they threatened to go to the police about Olga’s death. They wanted the formula, of course. Galina called Marina to arrange a meeting for what would turn out to be the day after their deaths. Odds are Marina got her old buddy Grigoriy on it, faked murder-suicides being a Komarov specialty. Then, once Pierre had destroyed the formula and products, Grigoriy was superfluous. Marina seized the opportunity to throw him under the bus for Pierre’s killing while she got the remains of your products. Or perhaps she had that in mind all along.”
“Would Marina have gotten away with it if I hadn’t figured out she was the killer?”
“It would depend on how sharp that CCTV photo of her birthmark is and how good an attorney she got. We slipped up by not studying the police tapes more closely before. Yes, we had them. And now we have her admissions on tape. None of which makes me look particularly good. I don’t approve of the way you did it, Anna, but”—he nodded abruptly—“nice work.”
“And now?” David asked. “If this were my film, I’d close with a tracking shot of Komarov walking merrily out of the piazza, then zoom in slowly on the precious Boots bag.”
Barnes chuckled humorlessly. “Filled with remnants of actual Boots the Chemist skincare products. Poor Grigoriy. A black mark against one of the espionage game’s top pros. He really should have known better.”
This was, Anna saw, how Barnes would console himself, with the fact that his enemy had at least tarnished his reputation. “Same old story, isn’t it?” she said. “Komarov’s lust for YOUNGER blinded him to reason. Barton was right, you know. He wasn’t the type to play God. He died for nothing in the long run. They all did, didn’t they? There is no YOUNGER now, and no one will know there ever was. Those thousands upon thousands of women who would have bought it will never have a clue how close they were to their dream.”
“I wouldn’t worry about them,” David said thoughtfully. “They’re going to go on as they were before, just as you’re going to go on, and Andrew is, and I am. That’s life, isn’t it? Getting older day by day and learning to live with it. Not so bad considering the alternative, I’d say.”
She reached over and, smiling, took his hand. “Not bad at all.”
Epilogue
Six Months Later
Anna Wallingham agreed to a hefty payout of £500,000 upon the dissolution of her contract with BarPharm. The payout was signed off on by her good friend Marie Héloise Barton. Madame Barton took over Barton Pharmaceuticals when her former daughter-in-law was charged with the murder of Pierre, who had died from ingesting one of several toxins British intelligence had long suspected Sybyska Chemicals of dealing in illegally. Madame Barton paid the other Mrs. Barton a fire-sale price for her shares. Moscow is in continuing negotiations with the UK as they seek extradition of their loyal citizen. Marina Sybyska Barton is awaiting the result from her cell in England. She rarely asks about her children.
A week after Marina’s arrest, Becca Symonds and Chas Power received postcards from New York at their office in central London. The writer apologized for her sudden disappearance. “It’s a long story,” each read. “Shorter version: I was scared. I’m fine now and just wanted to say how great it was working with you. xox, Tanya.” There was no return address.
Anna Wallingham currently resides in her house in Studio City, California, where, having decided it was time to live up to the fiction she’d created and falling back upon her skills as a copywriter, she is hard at work finishing the rough draft of her first novel, the one she kept telling people she was going to write. Her old friends all tell her that her long holiday took ten years off her looks; her new friends tell her they’re sorry it took so long for them to get to know one another. Anna spends a great deal of her time with those she loves best, Allie Moyes and Richard Myerson. The former was recently promoted to full partner at Creativity Management while the latter is vice president and general manager of Coscom USA, where he reports to president and major stockholder Clive Madden.
After a surprise arrest, George Berger was found guilty of having hired two men whom he’d flown from Los Angeles to London for the purpose of killing his wife, Jan, in a hit-and-run. The demand for his backlisted novels increased enough for all of them to be republished; this earned his agent, Allie, a very nice bonus.
David Wainwright is directing the second season of his new television series in London. He spends most of his free time with his son, Nick, to whom he’s a devoted father. He calls Anna Wallingham often, as she calls him. Neither is behaving impetuously. They have set a date to meet, in just one more month, in Paris. When they talk, Anna can tell David is as nervous as she is. Can it all work out? This time, she’s sure he wants it to as much as she does. She hopes they have both changed enough and that their love is strong enough for them to find a way to be a couple. She also knows that no matter what happens, she has laid to rest her demons and will no longer confuse independence with fear of letting someone in.
A month after Berger’s trial ended, Anna received a postcard of her own, this one from Moscow.
Cui bono? Who profits? He who gains is always the obvious suspect: now you know who killed your friend. And he with access is always the obvious thief: that’s how I know who has the YOUNGER formula. And if you think about it, so shall you, clever Anna. I look forward to our meeting again. I have no doubt that we will.
The obvious thief? It struck her like lightning, and she couldn’t believe that she’d missed it. In her mind’s eye, the window of a big blue car smoothly slid partly down and a chauffeur’s hand emerged, holding a small, plain brown kraft-paper tote bag. That hand had baited a trap not with cheese but with Anna Wallingham. Had Andrew done it from greed or for country? She might never know but
had faith that patriotism was the sole motivation and that YOUNGER would, in the end, help those who needed it to accomplish something worthwhile.
She couldn’t help but smile at the impudence of the message sent by the man who had once planned to kill her. When she turned the card over, she wasn’t surprised to see Lucian Freud’s self-portrait, that searing study of the dissolution of the flesh caused by time.
Acknowledgments
Writing a novel is a solitary effort enriched by the kindness of others. I’m grateful for all those who offered their time, opinions, ideas, and support. The tireless reading and astute comments of Michele Thyne, Julie Logan, Alice Jay, Paul Mungo, and Kathy Kirkland helped immeasurably, as did the suggestions and enthusiasm of Jeremy Poole, Michael Oliver, Sally O’Sullivan, Dermot Keating, Josef and Ingrid Brunner, Frank and Gaie Burnet, Brendan O’Donnell, Max Grünig, Robert Yates, Vince Cappa, Mary Atherton, Elizabeth Wholey, Cara Robin, Ivan Teobaldelli, and Ruth Allen. Special thanks to Dianna Whitley for her photography as well as her valued story suggestions.
If not for Victoria Sanders, Bernadette Baker-Baughman, and the entire staff at Victoria Sanders & Associates, who believed in this book from the moment they read it, the pages might have ended up in a drawer in Berlin, where I did most of the writing. For making it all happen, I thank both Kjersti Egerdahl at Thomas & Mercer for acquiring the manuscript and Nancy Brandwein for her diligent editing: these last steps made a dream reality.
And, finally, I want to thank the professional beauty industry in which I worked and acquired Anna’s skincare and marketing expertise, and the town of Città di Castello, Italy, repository of a cultural and creative spirit that never ceased to inspire me in the eight years I lived within its walls.
About the Author
Younger Page 30
