The Long-Lost Jules

by Jane Elizabeth Hughes

  That would be, I suspected, both creepy and tragic. “Why don’t you go on your own?” I suggested. “I’d like to walk around and do some shopping.”

  He looked at me dubiously.

  “Really,” I said. But I liked that he knew me well enough to be suspicious of my sudden desire for retail therapy.

  “Well,” he said, “what about our plan to entrap our followers?”

  “I never agreed to it,” I said firmly. “I just want to go shopping.”

  “All right,” Leo said reluctantly. “You should be safe enough as long as you stick to Parizska Street and go straight back to the hotel.”

  I assured him I would, and he hesitated. “Please be careful,” he said, frowning at me.

  “I’ll be safe,” I assured him, with complete sincerity.

  “Well, then . . .” With a swift movement, he pulled me into his arms and just stood for one long moment. “Bye for now,” he said, turning and tossing the goodbye over his shoulder. “See you at the hotel.”

  Like a besotted fool, I was momentarily frozen to the spot. I watched Leo’s disappearing back with a curious mixture of desire and outrage. If he thought he could use that charm to break me down, then he didn’t know me at all.

  In something of a daze, I got myself turned around and headed back down the street to the US embassy. We went through the same rigmarole of passports and fingerprints and cameras until I was inside the safe haven of the embassy’s inner sanctum, guarded by a dozen heavily armed marines and the power of the US government. See, Leo, I thought, I told you I’d be safe!

  This time, my father’s old friend was bearded, not clean-shaven, and tall, not stooped. But he had the same wary eyes and air of command that Henry in Berlin had had—and Leo too, come to think of it.

  “Thank you for meeting with me, Angus.”

  “The pleasure is all mine,” he said. “I’m so sorry about your father. I knew him well.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Thank you.” I hated when people said that. No one knew my father as well as I did.

  He led me into a large, comfortable office with barred windows and gestured to a big captain’s chair in front of his desk. “Please,” he said. “Sit.”

  I sat. I imagined that most people did what Angus Moore told them to do. Again I thought of Leo.

  “Did Henry get in touch with you?” I began. “We met in Berlin?” I didn’t know why I was speaking in questions, except that this tall, keen-eyed man was looking down at me from his perch on the desk with such an assessing stare.

  “Yes,” he said. “Henry and I spoke at length. We are both concerned about your safety, and in our capacity as, shall we say, in loco parentis . . .”

  No, we shall not, I thought, with some heat. No one could ever stand in for my father. And no one needed to.

  “We think you should return to London immediately and break off all ties with this man. We’re not sure who he is, exactly. . . .”

  Well, join the crowd.

  “But since you’ve been attacked only when you’re with him and there are some questions about his intentions . . .”

  I smiled involuntarily, and Angus broke off, in some confusion. He waited, and I said weakly, “‘His intentions’ sounds like such an old-fashioned phrase.”

  Angus said, with a half smile, “I wasn’t suggesting he would be asking for your hand. . . .”

  “Of course I didn’t mean . . . ,” I said at the same time.

  An embarrassed silence.

  Angus cleared his throat. “At any rate, you should get away from your young man and go home and back to work.”

  I knew his advice was well meant and eminently sensible, but I resented him all the same—not least for his assumption that Leo could not possibly be interested in my own humble self. Angus knew that too.

  Gently, he said, “My dear young lady, I am sure your father would tell you just what I’m telling you: At best, this man brings you bad luck. At worst, well . . .”

  I nodded and stood up. “Thank you for your time,” I told him.

  He kissed me on both cheeks and stood back as I walked out the heavy doors, tripping over the floor jamb in my haste to escape. I knew he was right: It was time to end whatever this was with Leo and get on with my job.

  When I returned to my hotel room, even worse news awaited me. My friend Rosie had emailed me from Washington:

  Your man of mystery looks like trouble. Heard back from a friend about his military service. He was definitely military intelligence and apparently disappeared for months at a time, probably deep undercover. God knows what he’s mixed up in now.

  You’d better shake him.

  Chapter 21

  Originally I had thought that if I let Leo hang around long enough, I would figure out what he was really after and how he had found out about Jules. But after weeks of his shadow hovering over me, I was still not a jot wiser. He had revealed nothing, and I knew nothing more—except that he was dangerously attractive and not above using this allure to get what he wanted. All of my advisors—Angus, Henry, Rosie—were right: He was a nuisance at the very least and a danger at the most. It was time to cut him loose.

  And I had begun to think he was telling the truth. I had even begun to think he was genuinely sweet on me, but no. It was all business.

  Anyway, I was a loner. I didn’t travel in pairs. The only traveling companion I had ever wanted was my father.

  Grimly, I started throwing things into my bags. I didn’t know why I had packed so much. Maybe I hadn’t been sure I was returning to London.

  But I was—back to boring London and prissy, narcissistic Audrey at Atlantic Bank and her flock of mini-mes. No more Leo, no more jaunts through the winding, medieval streets of Eastern Europe, no more strangers on the attack, no more wild flights, no more museums and guns.

  No more Leo.

  Briefly, I regretted the porcelain doll outside Prague Castle.

  Three hours later I was airborne, thanks to a half-empty EasyJet flight and the wonders of my corporate American Express card. And eight hours after that, I was back at my desk at the bank, sorting through emails and phone messages.

  Leo knew where I was, of course. He knew where I lived and worked. Hell, my stepsister lived with his sister! So I would never “escape” him, but I was done with him. How could I even think about sleeping with a man who lied to me, consistently and thoroughly? He could follow me around for the rest of my life if he wanted, but we were done.

  Not that there ever had been a “we,” of course. And not that I wanted to sleep with him—or anyone.

  Kristen R. dimpled at me. “How was Berlin?” she asked politely.

  Audrey glanced up with a brief frown. “Kristen,” she said, “do you have time for a pop-up meeting? I’d like to really dig into those numbers on Sheikh Osama before our ten o’clock.”

  For the first time, it occurred to me that Audrey actively disliked me. It wasn’t just my differentness: my lackluster pedigree and advanced age and general mousiness. She actually disliked me. I wondered, did she resent having been strong-armed by some of Bob the Bear’s friends into hiring me? Or did she just dislike everyone who didn’t slavishly copy her every tic?

  And I realized I actively disliked her too.

  I masked my expression with a blank smile and went back to my emails again.

  Sheikh Abdullah was pleased with the Tiffany bracelets and wanted three more. Once again, I pondered the recipients’ identity and made a note to myself to do some discreet digging. You never knew what nuggets of information would turn out to be useful.

  He also wanted me to track down a case of rare Château d’If wine (the 1992 vintage, he specified) and to book tickets for his favorite wife, Nouri, to a spa in Switzerland. Hmm. I amused myself by speculating about which part of her body was going to be lifted or lipo’ed this time. But then I realized the spa (i.e., plastic surgery clinic) was just outside Zurich, the private banking capital of the world, and made another note to myself
. Nouri wasn’t going to meet with other bankers, was she?

  I could just imagine Audrey’s reaction if my only client left the bank.

  The last email was from Jake S., with the subject line Field Day Madness! Groaning inwardly, I clicked on it. Jake S.’s excitement was palpable. This year’s Field Day promised more “fun and thrills” than ever. Jake advised everyone to wear clothes “you don’t mind getting wet and muddy” and exhorted us all to “come with a spring in your step and a smile on your face!”

  Ugh.

  Ugh and fuck. I looked at the calendar and realized Field Day was this Saturday.

  I glanced at the email again and recalled that Jake’s last name was Segal. I remembered his fun fact about his grandfather’s speaking only Yiddish. Gripped by a sudden need to know, I asked him what Jews say when they refer to a dead person.

  He looked blank.

  “Something shalom?” I persisted.

  “Oh, yeah. Alav ha-shalom. It means ‘peace be upon him.’” Jake glanced around, embarrassed at knowing something so utterly uncool.

  I knew lots of Jews and could not recall ever having heard anyone use that phrase before. “Do all Jews say that?”

  Jake looked appalled. “Christ, no! Only religious people. Or really old people.” His tone suggested the two groups were equally repugnant. “My grandfather used to say it about my grandma.” He paused. “Why do you want to know?”

  “Oh,” I said evasively, “I heard someone say it on TV, and I wondered what it meant. Thanks, Jake.”

  He had already forgotten the conversation.

  But Leo was neither religious nor old. Was he?

  Pushing aside the paperwork on my desk—Sheikh Abdullah had requested another $40,000 in cash for his wife’s upcoming trip, and I had the usual boring documents to fill out—I decided to use one of our threat risk assessment matrix (TRAM) forms to analyze how much of a threat Leo could be.

  Threat Risk Assessment Matrix

  Potential Threat

  Dr. Leo Schlumberger

  Personality Profile

  Intelligent, speaks multiple languages, highly trained ex-IDF [that sounded ominous, I realized]. Puts on stammering, apologetic British act but really quite personable. Wealthy, worldly, head of large family of art dealers. Motives unclear.

  Scenarios

  1. Journalist/scam artist. [I couldn’t quite figure out his angle or what the scam could possibly be, but Nigerian princes don’t hold a monopoly on scams, and this might be a devious way of gaining access to Atlantic Bank. Journalist seemed more possible, though still unlikely; what scandal was he hoping to expose? Dull Boy? Surely not.]

  2. Villain/spy. [But why? Why? Why? Again, maybe the bank was a target of some bad guy(s); maybe there was a blackmail scheme afoot. But what did this have to do with a woman named Jules?]

  3. Obsessed historian. [Leo could be just what he said he was. I had been certain after the car attack that he was in Category 2, but had reconsidered since then. The one certainty in this whole web of uncertainties was that he was obsessed with dead Tudor queens. And that just didn’t seem to fit with Category 1 or 2.]

  Probabilities

  Scenario 1: 5 percent, I decided. Okay, 10 percent.

  Scenario 2: Ditto.

  Scenario 3: 80 percent, then? Was that right?

  Policy Recommendations

  1. Scenario 1: Lose him. Whatever he wanted, it wasn’t in the best interests of me or the bank.

  2. Scenario 2: See above. Avoid him at all costs. Continued contact was not worth the small benefit of untangling the Jules mystery.

  3. Scenario 3: ????? Was he as harmless as he appeared? Then again, there was the whole Jules thing and the 20 percent high-risk scenarios.

  I reread my matrix and frowned; Audrey would instantly reject it and demand definitive statements, instead of the question marks. As in, “My assessment is that Dr. Schlumberger is highly likely to be benign; nonetheless, continued contact is discouraged because, while the probability of malign intentions is low, the potential damage arising from them could be high.”

  I frowned again. That wasn’t right either. If I cut off all contact with Leo, I would never learn why he was convinced that I knew something about the elusive Jules. And also, I liked the guy. He was smart and intuitive and had been very kind to Kali—in fact, he was pretty good company when he wasn’t trying to charm information out of me. I had no friends aside from my ex-colleagues from IDC, who were always globe-trotting while I sat and moldered in London. And the Katherine Parr and Baby Mary story had captivated me too; I wanted badly for them to have a happy ending.

  Putting it down on paper seemed to magnify the ambiguities rather than resolve them, as I had hoped. Perhaps the TRAM wasn’t a good assessment tool after all. All I had were more question marks. More flip-flopping.

  So, then what should I do?

  I had no idea.

  I put the report into the shredder at the side of my desk, pulled out my cell phone, and dialed Kali.

  “I only have a few minutes” was her greeting.

  That was how she had answered her phone every time I’d called since she’d gone to France with Leo’s sister. I hadn’t realized how much I enjoyed her hero worship of me until it was gone.

  “Why? What are you doing?” I asked. “And how are you?”

  “Fine. The twins are getting ready to jump into the pool, and Benji”—she pronounced it the French way, Bahn-zhee—“just woke up from his nap.”

  “Where’s Élodie?” I asked, worried that Kali was taking on too much.

  “She took Amélie to her piano lesson.”

  I digested that. I had had only a few brief conversations with Kali since she had become assistant nanny to Élodie’s four children—nine-year-old Amélie, six-year-old twins Leah and Sara, and nine-month-old Bahn-zhee—and, annoyingly, I still felt responsible for her.

  “Are you okay?” I asked. “Are they working you too hard?”

  “Oh, no, it’s just very busy around here. Leah! Don’t go outside without me!” In execrably bad French, she roared, “Leah, faites attention! On y va!” And to me, “Gotta go. Byeee!”

  Spirits lifted by Kali’s obvious contentment, I pressed the off button and scrolled again through the pictures of her and the children that she had texted me that morning. I wondered when Oncle Léo would go to visit his sister.

  I had my “regular quarterly check-in” with Audrey scheduled for four o’clock that afternoon (everyone else had weekly check-ins) but got a text from her assistant at five thirty to say that Audrey was running late and would reschedule.

  Yeah, I thought. And I’m the Queen of Sheba.

  Thoroughly disgruntled, I walked back to my quiet, empty apartment.

  And then it was Field Day. As instructed, I wore an old T-shirt and jeans to the posh Bellwood Club, just outside London, only to discover that my workmates were all, to a man (or woman), clad in lululemon from head to toe: tight-fitting capri yoga pants, even tighter tank tops, and sporty headbands.

  Wrong-footed again.

  Jake S., beaming and bustling about with importance as the organizer of Field Day, divided us into teams for the first activity, toilet papering. Each team was to wrap one unlucky person in toilet paper until not a speck of skin or clothing was visible. The first team to thoroughly mummify its colleague won.

  Needless to say, my team selected me to be the mummy.

  I stood as still as possible while shrieking, laughing sorority girls raced around me with rolls of toilet paper; I breathed in soggy tissue through my nose until they tut-tutted and told me, “Stop breathing! We can see your mouth!”

  Was this supposed to be fun?

  Audrey’s daughter Pia’s team won. Pia, at thirteen, was a mini-Audrey, only more openly competitive. She would learn to mask that in charm as she grew older, I thought. My team abandoned me to unwrap the toilet paper as best I could. It clung to my sweating T-shirt, and I peeled off soggy, disgusting lumps while my te
ammates high-fived each other for their great effort.

  Next was the water-balloon toss. Kristen R., who had been captain of her lacrosse team at Princeton, flung the balloon at me with such enthusiasm that it crashed open against my chest and chin, soaking me in cold water and clingy, rubbery strands of broken balloon. Grimly, I brushed off the water as the Kristens giggled together at the sight of my wet T-shirt, and Kristen the Younger whispered something to Kristen T. about my bra.

  Pia’s team won again. I was beginning to discern a pattern.

  Then came the all-time favorite: musical chairs. Pasting a manic grin on my face, I ran around the chairs with everyone else and was pleased to discover that I was almost good at this one. Everyone else was more concerned with dimpling and socializing, while I was laser-focused on getting a chair. Eventually it was down to just Pia and me. I rolled my shoulders and concentrated as Audrey started the music again.

  The music stopped, and there was a chair behind me! Triumphant at my imminent victory, I plopped myself down into it, only to feel the whoosh of air as it was pulled out from under me. I fell, hard, to the floor instead. The jolt reverberated all the way up my spine to the base of my neck.

  Chortling, Jake S. helped me to my feet as everyone else crowded around to congratulate Pia on her win. “You should have seen the look on your face,” he said, still grinning.

  I limped away.

  The “barbecue” was vegan, and with some dismay I contemplated the platters of quinoa, tofurkey, and bean sprouts on the table. I had a headache from my head to my toes, I shivered when the cool wind hit my wet T-shirt, and my knees were bruised from being bowled over by the team of Pia and Kristen the Younger during the sack race.

  In short, I was hungry. So I loaded up my plate with nuts, olives, and bread—the highest-calorie items I could find—and threw in a carob brownie for dessert. Everyone else nibbled daintily, commenting on the crispness of the sprouts and the nuances of the curry naan. I would have killed for a slab of meat and a baked potato dripping with butter and salt.