Jim Pope opened the door. The sweatshirt was stained and he hadn’t shaved. It didn’t look or smell as if he’d showered, either. He said, ‘Hi’ without interest and stood aside for Powell to enter the apartment. Ann was in the kitchen annexe, in a crumpled housecoat. She wasn’t wearing any make-up although her blond hair was tidy because of how short it was cut. The colour was growing out at the roots, though. Ann didn’t smile. She shouted: ‘Beth! Dad’s here.’ To Powell she said, ‘You want coffee?’
‘No thanks.’
‘We didn’t expect you for another hour.’
‘I want a full day, after last weekend. I have to bring her back early.’
The woman looked at the cactus. ‘How was Texas?’
‘Hot.’ Powell held out the plant. ‘I brought this back for Beth.’
‘I didn’t think it was for me.’
As Pope came into the room behind him Powell said, ‘How’s it going? Any luck?’ Pope was a slob, he decided, suddenly. It wasn’t right for his daughter to live with the man.
‘Construction business is dead,’ complained Pope.
Powell wished Beth would hurry. ‘Maybe it will pick up.’
‘And maybe I’ll win the Virginia State lottery and live happily ever after with the fairies,’ said Ann. Over her shoulder, more loudly, she shouted: ‘Beth, come on! Your dad’s waiting.’
The girl came hesitantly from her bedroom, the smile matching her uncertainty. The sweatshirt and jeans were freshly washed and so was the girl. The perfume experiment was too heavy. He guessed she’d spent a lot of time getting the ponytail as perfect as it was. He wouldn’t draw attention to it by asking how much longer she had to wear the teeth retainer. It was the sort of thing he should know anyway. He said, ‘You look terrific.’ He held out the cactus. ‘Brought this back for you from Texas.’
The child took it, smiling again. ‘I’ve seen them here.’
‘They grow all over,’ said Powell, caught out.
Beth kissed him and said ‘Thanks,’ then carried it back into her bedroom.
When she emerged again Powell said, ‘I have to bring you back by five, honey. It’s a running case. Sorry.’
‘That’s OK,’ shrugged the child.
‘That OK with you?’ he asked his ex-wife.
She shrugged, too. ‘You’re not taking me to Paris as a surprise, are you, Jim?’
The man didn’t reply, slumping instead in front of the television. Cartoons were showing, Tom and Jerry. He seemed engrossed. The apartment, Powell saw, was an even bigger mess than it had seemed from the doorway. Ann had trapped him into marriage to stop living like this, he thought. To his daughter he said, ‘Let’s go.’
In the car Beth said, ‘What’s the case?’
This wasn’t the sort of conversation he wanted. ‘Murder,’ he said, shortly.
‘Tell me about it.’
‘We’re not talking about murder on our day together. We’re not talking about murder, period.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I don’t want to. What would you like to do? We could go on the river maybe. Or to the Smithsonian. That’s a great natural history building, isn’t it?’
‘Disney Dad!’
‘What?’
‘That’s what divorced fathers are called. I saw it on television. Disney Dads because it’s always a problem knowing what to do with their kids on visitation days. So they always go to Disney.’
‘Well we can’t because there isn’t one here. So what do you want to do?’
‘You really want to know?’
‘I really want to know.’
‘Go home to your place. Just hang out. Eat lunch there.’
‘I got nothing in the refrigerator.’
‘We could stop at a market,’ the child pointed out, logically. ‘That’s where people buy stuff.’
Which was what they did. They bought burgers and hot dogs and buns and Dr Pepper’s and Häagen-Dazs and on their way to Crystal City Beth declared it was really fun and she was having the best time. Powell decided he was, too. Back at the apartment he lied and said he hadn’t let her win at junior Scrabble and at lunchtime Beth insisted on grilling the meat, which she did perfectly. She laid the table just as well. He had determined against asking but as they ate Beth said, ‘Mom and Jim are fighting.’
‘People do.’
‘They do all the time. I wish they wouldn’t.’
‘What do they fight about?’
‘Jim not having a job, mostly. Mom says he isn’t trying.’
‘How is he with you?’ asked Powell.
She shrugged. ‘OK.’
‘You and he ever fight?’
‘We don’t talk much. Which is fine.’
‘It’ll be all right, between him and Mom,’ said Powell, not knowing what else to say.
‘Could I stay with you some time?’
He stopped eating. ‘You know you can. Any time …’ He hesitated. ‘It’s difficult, just now. Obviously. But when it’s all over maybe I could fix it so we could spend a whole lot more time together.’
Her face opened, into a smile. ‘You really mean that!’
‘I promise.’
‘You’re promising a lot, Dad.’
‘And I mean it all.’
Beth demanded to clear the table and Powell called the FBI Watch Room while she did so. The duty officer said there hadn’t been any traffic on the Texas or Alabama murders. In the afternoon they found an old movie on television. They watched with Beth curled up, her head against his chest, and Powell fell asleep. It was Beth who woke him. ‘It’s four-thirty, Dad. You wanted to take me back by five.’
‘Thanks.’
‘You snore.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘You did mean it, about you and me, didn’t you? Being together more?’
‘I told you, it’s a promise.’
Nothing had been done to clean or tidy Ann’s apartment when they got back. Pope was still unshaven, unshowered and in the same stained sweatshirt, four bottles through a six pack, slumped in front of the television: the only improvement was a Judy Garland classic instead of Tom and Jerry. Ann’s sweatsuit wasn’t fresh either, although it wasn’t stained. She hadn’t made up and was flush faced and Powell guessed he and Beth had interrupted another dispute. He guessed Beth thought the same. Within minutes – seconds – of entering the apartment she’d retreated within herself, formally thanking him for a wonderful day before disappearing into her bedroom saying that she had homework to do. Pope continued to ignore him and Ann seemed anxious for him to leave, so he did.
How much better would it be for Beth if he got out of headquarters? Unanswerable question. His recollection was of working longer hours – spending more time away from home – in every field office in which he’d worked than he did now in Washington.
Which was past history, not a reflection that was going to help him sort out his current problem. Even as an agent-in-charge, able to depute, he couldn’t imagine how it would be possible for a thirteen-year-old girl permanently to live with him. He wasn’t sure, at that precise moment, how he could properly fulfil the promise that he and Beth would be together more. But he would find a way. He had to. He didn’t like – want – Beth living in the sort of environment he thought existed with Ann and her lover.
Amy Halliday was in the incident room, in the centre of her computer bank. She looked around, smiling, at his entry, said ‘Hi’, and went back at once to her screens. Michael Gaynor’s impression of the hurrying man occupied the first. Then, in order, came graphics of Gene Johnson, Billie Jean Kesby and Jethro Morrison. Without looking around again Amy said, ‘I know we’ve got pictures of all three but I can make the graphic three dimensional. Look!’
The features of all three slowly rotated from left profile to full face to then left profile. The impression was of their being alive.
Amy said, ‘I think that has more impact on a television screen.’
‘I think you’re
right.’ Powell paused. ‘I didn’t expect to find you here.’
‘Thought I’d look in, see if there was anything. While I was here I decided to do this.’
‘I’ve kept in touch with the Watch Room, during the day,’ said Powell, unsure why he felt the need to justify himself.
‘I’ve checked Despatch: Billie Jean’s answer tape hasn’t arrived,’ said Amy. ‘When we go public it might be worthwhile posting something on the Internet. We’ve got a home page.’
‘Let’s keep it in mind. You eat lunch?’
‘A sandwich.’
‘If you haven’t any other plans, you want to take pot luck somewhere in Georgetown?’
‘I don’t have any other plans.’
It was hardly pot luck because Powell liked the French café opposite the Four Seasons Hotel and being early they didn’t have difficulty without a reservation. Amy joined him with a martini again but before she tried it she said, ‘We setting out to make a habit of this?’
She’d recognize bullshit without needing a farmyard, he decided. ‘You know what they say about there being no such thing as a free lunch: or in this case, dinner?’
‘I’ve heard it said.’
‘We have, as another expression goes, been thrown together. And as you said, we don’t want any misunderstandings. At the moment I don’t know where the hell you’re coming from. I think it’s time I found out.’
She sipped her drink, solemn faced. ‘Too pushy, eh?’
‘You tell me.’
‘It’s quite simple. More than anything else I want to become an FBI agent. I know it’s not the usual route, but Research and Analysis was the only thing advertised. And there are precedents for internal transfer. I know because I checked. More than twenty, in fact: five from my own department. And I’ve got all the necessary academic qualifications, college degree, stuff like that. I know because I checked that, too.’ She finished in a rush, breathless.
‘And you want to start at the top?’ smiled Powell.
‘No,’ she said, seriously. ‘I just want to start. I impressed Harry Beddows by making the connection between Texas and Alabama. It was a chance. Why shouldn’t I try to run with it? Look good on a transfer CV, don’t you think?’
‘You and Harry …’ Powell began, not sure how to finish. He knew of at least two affairs Beddows had had, when they’d worked together in San Diego. There were probably more.
‘No, he’s not fucking me,’ she said, bluntly.
‘That wasn’t how I was going to put the question.’
‘It was what you would have meant. Something it’s even more important for you to believe is that I’m not putting myself in competition with you and I’m not going to try to score off you and I never will …’ She allowed another brief smile. ‘I don’t actually think I’d get far, if I tried. I know how good I am at what I do do – and that I’m far too pushy and that I too often frighten people off – but I know just as well what my limitations are: that I’ve got a long way to go, even if I hide it well.’ She finished her drink. ‘There! Have I earned my dinner?’
‘You’re getting there,’ said Powell. She was either the best con artist or the most unusually ingenuous woman he’d ever encountered. At the moment he was going for ingenuous. ‘What about Amy Halliday the woman?’
She didn’t smile and for a moment Powell thought he’d pushed too hard. Then she said: ‘Only child. Dad worked in Silicon Valley, so we lived in San Francisco. Majored in Sociology at Berkeley. Got fascinated by crime, so my career was decided upon. Mom and Dad died together, which was lucky because they were too dependent upon each other to ever be apart, in a car crash, two years ago. I worked in San Francisco PD in records, saw the Bureau ad and here I am.’
Still too much like a CV, which wasn’t what he’d wanted to hear. To ask further would be pushing too hard.
After they’d ordered, she said, ‘I know that the deal is that you’re paying for this meal, but don’t I get to learn a little, too, about Wesley James Powell?’
Powell supposed it was fair exchange but initially he was reluctant, starting out as generally as possible by admitting he’d applied to the Bureau because he couldn’t think of anything else to do after leaving college and because his encouraging father had been an agent in the days – ‘awesome days, by the decree of the Lord God himself’ – of J. Edgar Hoover. He later decided his attitude must have reflected his problems of the last few months, because Amy picked up on it immediately.
‘You’re a good law officer.’
‘Let me guess: you checked my case record!’ It hadn’t been a difficult guess: she’d known his full name.
‘I’m too determined to make a mistake about a team leader.’
He looked at her curiously. ‘You mean you would have passed on this – even though you got the chance by making the connection – if you hadn’t had confidence in who was heading the investigation?’
‘I’d have given it a lot more thought than I did.’
‘I guess there’s some flattery mixed in there somewhere,’ he said. ‘Thanks.’
‘More practicality than flattery.’
‘The success rate hasn’t been so good just lately.’
‘A bad run, one after the other. It happens.’
He still didn’t know her well enough to talk about Beddows’s heavy innuendoes. Or about how much his attitude was being affected by his far too belated concern about Beth. There was a break while they ordered. As the waiter left, he said, ‘Maybe my luck’s changed, having a researcher as career anxious as you. You’re not going to miss anything, are you?’
‘I might, if we’re not a complete team.’
‘I think we’re going to be.’
She was silent for several moments, picking at the duck she’d ordered. ‘As we’re baring our souls, I guess we might as well get something else out of the way.’
Powell waited, curiously.
‘I know you’re divorced, although I don’t know if you’ve got a current relationship.’
When was it going to stop! ‘Accessing internal personnel files is prohibited: I actually think it’s illegal.’ He was aware there wasn’t the rebuke, outrage even, there should have been in his voice.
‘No misunderstandings, remember?’ she said, impatiently. ‘I don’t have any personal situation. And I’m not looking for one. So by being a complete team I mean a complete professional team. Nothing more. Nothing else.’ For the first and only time there was an uncertainty in her attitude.
‘You believe me if I say I’m not looking for anything other than professional, either?’ Considering his disappointment at what she’d just said, he decided he’d sounded quite convincing.
‘I could try.’
‘Try.’
‘Watch me!’ she said, turning the word.
Although his intention to create a sensation hadn’t diminished – if anything it had increased, although he still hadn’t decided how he would achieve it – the anonymity of the Washington suburbs perfectly suited Harold Taylor. He considered the isolated clapboard house he’d rented at Belmont, between Fredericksburg and Charlottesville, to be in an uninhabited no man’s land, the residents closest to him almost a quarter of a mile away and having no more interest in him than he had in them, although he amused himself by thinking that one day they’d queue up to lie about how well they’d known him and what sort of man he was.
He’d fitted the basement up first, creating the false wall to hide the safe and the specimen refrigerator and the things he carried in his satchel bag and the minimal laboratory equipment he’d acquired on this return, although he virtually accepted that the belief he’d once held – become moderately famous for, in early nineteenth century London – was a false premiss. Certainly there’d been no evidence in the retained eyes of Gene Johnson or Billie Jean Kesby or Jethro Morrison and he straightened now from the microscope examination of the orb he’d taken from Marcus Carr, positive its retina held no image of him as the last per
son the retired general had seen, at the moment of death.
He carefully replaced the latest eye in its preserving bottle before he returned it to the refrigerator and stacked the microscope and his testing equipment alongside. It was difficult because when he’d built the shelves he hadn’t made allowance for anything extra, like Gene Johnson’s handgun. It looked jumbled and it offended him: he couldn’t understand now why he’d taken it. He removed the gun from the shelf, worked the safe combination and put it there, smiling in satisfaction at the neat improvement.
Time for England, he decided: England and a shambling, incontinent old man and the elderly widow who had unknowingly inherited the fault of her husband. Maybe, too, for a woman or two. There was, after all, no hurry. But first a visit that had greater priority than all that.
James Durham was on the murder list: the next intended victim when he returned from London. But James Durham was the paymaster. And before he died he had to pay over the final $500,000 of the money he’d stolen. He’d been given ample warning, to convert what was necessary.
The retribution always had to be absolute.
Chapter Nine
It was unfortunate, although inevitable, that this particular pleasure had to end. He’d enjoyed terrorizing James Durham for as long as he had, having his own performing animal to jump and bark – do any trick demanded – whenever he’d snapped his fingers. But it couldn’t be helped. There would, at least, be a final confrontation after this one. Durham would really know it was going to end then. The control – the total life or death power – would be phenomenal when he changed his face, finally to let the man know that for all the time he’d believed he’d been handing over blackmail money he had in fact been repaying Myron Nolan every cent that he’d embezzled all those years ago. It would literally be justice being seen to be done, through fear-frozen eyes.
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