The Da Vinci Deception (9 page)

Jonas fell silent. He leaned forward as if to speak, then slumped back. All the while he tried to rub away the wetness that soaked his shirt collar. Finally he spoke, his round mouth quivering. “You were a damned fool! An impetuous, unthinking, stupid fool. I have spent too much time and too much money to have this project go wrong.” His fat body shook in angry frustration. “I warned you to curb your impulsiveness, and I don't know what alternatives you had, but this way there are none. After they discover the body the police will swarm over the library, all of Windsor, and half of London. They do that when one of theirs is killed. Accident or not. Everyone will be questioned. You were seen with her in the hotel.”

“The place was crowded with weekenders. We didn't leave the library together; in fact the guard saw Sarah leave before I called for him to lock up.”

“Small points but in our favor. Tomorrow you will do two things. First you will go to where the Evans woman lived and search for other papers. And second, you will return the Leonardo to the library.”

“I'm not a bloody lackey and I'm not a magician who can slip in and
out of a strange house because you snap your damned fingers and say so.”

Jonas reacted instantly. He thrust a hand at Tony's face and snapped his fingers twice, then once again. “You'll do as I tell you. Suppose a team of investigators goes through her papers, and suppose there is a complete file on you, and then suppose they get suspicious and find the slimmest piece of evidence you were in her car.”

Tony gave an acknowledging nod. “But the drawing. You said Stiehl needed it for two days. And the police. They'll come prowling.”

“I'll deal with Curtis, and as to the police, it seems that if you had anything to do with the woman's death, the library would be a most unlikely spot for you to be.”

“But there's a risk.”

“You sent someone off on a death ride and didn't think that was taking a risk? Are you completely stupid?”

Jonas shook with anger. “You had four months to bring the drawing out, and when you did, you bungled. There's still a chance you can cover yourself but you must find if she had a file on you. You have until the morning to find a way to clean up the bloody trail you've left.”

Another snifter of brandy arrived and Jonas waited until the waiter was out of sight. “Where is her home?”

“In Battersea,” Tony answered. “I've got the address.”

“Did she have a family?”

“I don't know. There was a photo of a small girl in her purse.”

“I want you to meet me in St. James Square after you've gone through her papers. Be there no later than 9:30.”

Tony looked at his watch. “That's less than twelve hours from now. That's bloody goddamned impossible.”

Jonas stood. “Which will it be? Run from a murder charge until they catch you or deal with the impossible?”

Jonas did not swirl the heady liquid onto the sides of the snifter, then patiently inhale the rich fumes. Instead he drank it in a single swallow, then strode quickly from the room.

T
he rain had ended but the air remained heavy. The early-morning sun could not penetrate the thick, low clouds. Detective Superintendent Walter Deats's car turned off Datchet Road and stopped near a low, stone fence. A police sergeant came to the car and touched the peak of his cap in an informal salute.

“Sorry to bring you out but we might have a puzzle here and I thought you ought to see everything before we remove the body.”

“Just my luck, Randy. It's my first free Saturday in a month.”

The superintendent climbed from the car and the two set off for the torn Rover that still lay on its side. Deats was a man of medium build, in his mid-forties, and nattily dressed. His full mustache curled up at the ends and he wore dark-rimmed glasses that were more often held like an actor's prop than worn to aid his vision. They covered half the distance when Deats stopped. He looked back to the stone fence and then to the wrecked car.

“Have you measured this? It's an incredible distance for the car to travel considering that it hit then went over that fence.”

“It's over a hundred feet. A hundred and six to be exact.”

“No wonder he's dead,” Deats mused aloud.

“It was a woman,” the officer said.

“I got a message that someone from the Yard was killed.”

“It's a woman, all right. Detective Constable Sarah Evans. She was attached to the Arts and Antiques Squad. We checked early this morning. On special duty with the Royal Library.”

“At Windsor?” Deats asked.

“Been there since August first.”

“Good Christ. One of my oldest friends heads up that operation and he didn't have the courtesy to tell me they'd spotted someone right under our noses. That's their bad luck.”

“The girl took an awful beating. It's a wonder she wasn't thrown clear of the mess.”

Walter Deats had seen the results of knife killings and motorcycle accidents and knew how difficult it was to accept the sight of a maimed and bloodied victim without feeling an awful sickness deep inside. When he reached the car, they shined a bright light on Sarah's face. He instructed the officer holding the flashlight to put a sheet over the body. “Set the car upright,” he said quietly. “No point having it look like a circus tragedy.”

Sergeant Randy Pelkinton handed him a clipboard. “Here's what we've come up with so far, Walter. On the surface it looks like she was speeding and lost control at the turn. A few things don't jibe, but nothing much to put your teeth into. Like we don't find skid marks, but the road was wet and there's been traffic over that same stretch. Maybe she dozed off and didn't have a chance to brake.”

Deats began his own investigation. Notes on a clipboard would be early observations, nothing more. One of the men was searching for fingerprints inside the car. Deats ordered him to look for prints on the outside when the car was dry. He spoke into a miniature tape recorder, capturing his typically terse judgments and the questions still requiring answers. The coroner had not appeared; it always bothered Deats that the medical people were the last to show. It would serve no purpose to have the poor woman declared dead again; that fact was clearly established at 5:30 in the morning when the accident was discovered by a motorcyclist who chose to relieve himself at the very spot the car crashed over the stone fence. Deats wanted an autopsy and knew there would be a minor skirmish over having it performed immediately. It was Saturday. A comment entered into the tape recorder had to do with the fact that Sarah Evans had not been thrown clear of the car in spite of the obvious crashing the car received in the hundred and six feet it traveled. “Seat belt?” was the question to be considered. He noted also that her right foot was actually bent against the accelerator pedal. He would request that the medical people examine the foot. After the pocketbook and contents had been checked for fingerprints, he took it to his car and examined every item, making audio notes as he went along. When he completed the chore, he recorded two final thoughts. First he would phone Elliot Heston, a senior officer in CIP, Scotland Yard. They were old friends and the tragedy was a cheerless excuse to get together. Policy
dictated that accidental deaths must be fully investigated and he would assist in whatever way his old friend might request.

His other note was a reminder to choose two men to break the news to Sarah Evans's family even though Scotland Yard would send their own emissaries. But the accident occurred within the jurisdiction of the Windsor police, and he would send one officer in uniform, the other in his Sunday best. It was an unpleasant assignment that Deats wanted carried out as early in the morning as was practical.

During the drive from the Dukes Hotel to his West Kensington flat, Tony had an opportunity to put the day's events into some kind of coherent perspective. The very simple task of taking the Leonardo drawing had escalated into the nightmare of killing. Now he faced the challenge of getting into Sarah Evans's home to purloin potentially incriminating files, then return the drawing to the library. He was cold and tired and angry. But somehow he began formulating a plan for the morning and by the time he fell into a restless sleep a strategy was taking shape.

In the morning before the sun had risen, he sat in front of a mirror, a box of stage makeup before him. Experienced fingers molded pliable putty into a nose somewhat larger than his own, and with a slight bend to it. Over his face and neck he applied a pale cream, blending it carefully into the tiny lines between the putty and his skin. Next he fashioned a pair of bushy eyebrows and glued them in place. With a black liner pencil he drew crow's-feet about his eyes and furrows across his forehead.

To his beard, hair, and new eyebrows he patted on a white powder and combed some of the whiteness away so as to change the brown to gray. From another box he selected a pair of metal-rimmed spectacles.

Next he assembled an ordinary costume: a plain shirt and tie, gray pants, a mud brown sweater, and over all of it a soiled raincoat. He put on a battered hat with a broad brim, which he pulled to the top of his new, bushy eyebrows. He practiced walking with a stoop and added a limp to his gait. Under his arm he held a flat briefcase. During his transformation he talked to himself, practicing an indistinguishable London City accent bordering on cockney.

From his collection of business cards he chose one that read “Jerome Black, Sales Representative.” Beneath the name: “Usher & Leeds—Computer Professionals.”

At 6:30 it was still nearly dark on the streets. He drove to Heathrow Airport. With his limping, slanting walk he made his way into the terminal and the Godfrey Davis car-rental agent. He handed the attendant a deposit, located the English Ford, then drove across Chelsea Bridge to Battersea. Beyond the huge park with its racetrack and band shell the streets narrowed and came at each other in odd angles. Sarah's apartment was on Ursala Street off Shuttleworth Road. He parked at the end of the street. The time was 8:20.

He walked slowly, inspecting the cars that passed and those parked along the street. An ambulance, its siren screaming, roared past. He glanced back to his car, wishing he had parked closer. He hoped there would be no cause to leave hurriedly yet realized that when Sarah's body was identified, all hell would break loose. Even now he might be too late, might encounter a team from Scotland Yard consoling the family. He set his mind on the character he was about to play. He knew the game of masquerade, and he was incredibly good at it. He continued on to the apartment building. He pulled on thin leather gloves as he approached the entrance. He pressed hard on the button under Sarah Evans's name. Sarah's flat was on the first floor in the front if he figured correctly. He rang again. He would try a third time, then ring the superintendent. His finger was poised to press one more time when a thin voice came from a recessed speaker.

“Yes, who is it?”

“It's Jerry Black—Usher and Leeds. Is Miss Evans at home?” He pitched his voice higher and tried to sing the words, dropping
h'
s and trilling his
r'
s.

The female voice answered. “No, she's not home. I hoped you was her saying she lost her keys.”

“She was in our shop a short time ago and asked that we come to look things over before she put in an order. Seemed very important to her. May I come in?”

The little voice did not respond immediately. Then: “She said it was important?”

“I'd say very definitely, ma'am.”

There was another pause. “Come in, then: 100A.”

A buzzer sounded and the door opening into the lobby was unlocked.
He climbed a flight of stairs and found 100A. It was at the front overlooking the street, as he had hoped. He tapped on the door and it was opened by a small girl, perhaps five or six, with blond hair falling below her shoulders onto a pink bathrobe. She was holding a small white-and-tan dog of indiscernible lineage, which promptly jumped from her arms and scurried to a corner, where it sat growling.

A short, stout woman appeared behind the little girl. Her face was pleasant and she managed a weak smile. “I'm Mrs. Evans's mother, and this is Cynthia, my granddaughter.”

Tony greeted Sarah's mother and daughter as if he were milling among the congregation at a church tea. His cordiality lacked eye contact. He flashed his business card and just as quickly slipped it back into his pocket. “Your daughter, ma'am, she was looking to buy a computer for her records and correspondence. She asked that we look over the place where she wants to have it installed.”

“I wish she was here. Oh, heavens, you have no idea how I wish she was here. She didn't come home last night. And she didn't call and that's not like her. She's in a special kind of work, you see, and I worry about her. Cynthia here, poor child, she's been cryin' most of the night.”