The Tangled Web: an international web of intrigue, murder and romance (27 page)

She took a quick look across the street as she walked purposefully towards the front entrance of the law offices. The area around the capital building remained cordoned off. Police were still all over the place. On the other side of the street, just a few yards ahead of her, stood an obstacle to her intent. Not to be deterred, Lauren stepped up to the two Special Forces officers and presented her press ID.

“You can’t go in there today,” she was told bluntly.

“But I’m with the press,” Lauren protested.

The law enforcement officers stood firm. “The building is being processed by the C.I.D. No one is allowed in except members of staff who have special permission. Sorry.”

Lauren persisted. “I won’t be more than half an hour,” she pleaded offering her driver’s license as additional ID. Seeing she was getting nowhere, she pulled out all the stops. “Can you at least call your superior officer and ask if I can go in? Or better, could you contact Chief Inspector Palmer? He knows me personally.”

The men glanced at each other uncertainly. One at last pulled a two-way radio from his belt. There was a static-filled exchange for a minute or two before he returned the radio to his belt.

“What did they say?” Lauren asked anxiously.

“They’re checking, ma’am. Please be patient.”

Rather than stand there twiddling her thumbs, Lauren crossed the street for a closer look at the activities on the other side. Again, she wondered who was behind the assassination. From the little she had learned from Robert Palmer, it had been a meticulously carried out undertaking. They had found not a shred of evidence thus far. She was on the verge of asking a few questions to fill the time, when she heard the crackle of the two-way radio from across the street. She hurried back to see if she had clearance.

“Yes, sir. Yes, sir. All right then, sir,” one of the men was saying into the radio. He returned the radio to his belt as Lauren came over to him. With a grudging look, he said, “You have permission to enter the building, Miss Anderson, but you’ll have to be fingerprinted. While you’re inside, please don’t touch anything if you can avoid it. They’re still lifting fingerprints in there.”

The Foster & Foster law offices were as quiet as a tomb as Lauren got out of the elevator at the fourth floor and went over to the reception desk where an attractive younger woman sat looking excruciatingly bored. On seeing Lauren, she smiled with relief that she had been momentarily saved from her solitude.

Lauren introduced herself with a smile in return. “I was wondering if I could talk to a few people in the office.”

“Sorry to disappoint you, but there’s hardly anybody here today, except the police,” the receptionist told her. “The two senior partners and their secretaries are the only ones who came to work.”

“Can I speak with either of the partners?”

The receptionist looked doubtful. “I don’t know if today is a good day, but I’ll check.” She picked up the phone. “Mr. Foster, Lauren Anderson from Island Daily News is here. Can you spare her a few minutes?”

The pretty face contorted in a series of grimaces. Lauren was not surprised to hear the answer. “He says not today, Miss Anderson. If you’d like to call and make an appointment, he’ll be happy to talk with you another time.” “Maybe I can help?” she offered with a hopeful look.

Lauren tried to get past her disappointment. She would have dearly liked to hear what the partners had to say about the possibility of their offices having been used for an assassination. Resigned that the receptionist was as much as she would get that day, she took her up on her offer. “Where were you when the Prime Minister was shot?” she asked readying her recorder.

“Right here, sitting at this desk.”

Lauren viewed the capital building through the windows. “You didn’t see anything?” she asked surprised.

“Not a thing. I didn’t even realize anything was wrong until I saw people rushing to the windows saying something about the Prime Minister being shot.”

“Were you here all day?” Lauren asked.

“I was here from nine until when it happened. I had a doctor’s appointment at three, so I was planning to take a late lunch.”

Lauren thought it strange that the woman had been oblivious to the commotion that had immediately followed the shots, but she chose not to linger on the subject.

“Is this the only reception area?” she asked.

“Yes, it’s the only one.”

“Does that mean you would have seen everyone who visited the firm between nine and when the Prime Minister was assassinated?”

“You sound like a detective,” the receptionist laughed. “That’s the same question the C.I.D. asked. No, I wouldn’t have seen everybody who might have come to the office yesterday. Only clients come through the front. Delivery people go to the back door. That’s where we come in too.”

Lauren paused to think for a minute. From what the receptionist had told her, she deduced the sniper must have slipped in through the back door. Certainly they would not have been able to get past the reception area without an appointment, or without knowing someone who worked there.

“Would it be possible to sneak in the back door?” she asked.

“No. You can’t get in without a key, or unless a member of staff buzzes you in. Besides, there’s a security guard there, so no one can just waltz into the building through the back door. If somebody wanted to sneak in, it would be easier to get in through the front.”

“Why would it be easier to enter that way?” Lauren was curious to know.

“There’s a door in the downstairs lobby that leads to the back corridor where the emergency staircase is. You can easily get to any part of the building that way.”

“I didn’t see any door when I came in. What door are you talking about?” Lauren asked puzzled.

“You didn’t notice it, did you?” the receptionist smiled. “That’s not surprising with all those old photographs of the city down there. They kind of draw your attention, don’t they?”

Lauren couldn’t help being baffled by such a gap in security, which would have allowed the sniper easy access to any floor. Even so, how would they have made it to their destination without being detected? The assassination took place in the middle of the day.

“Where is the entrance to the emergency stairs on this floor?” she asked.

“Right there,” the receptionist pointed.

Lauren walked over to the door to open it before remembering she had been instructed to touch nothing. Besides, someone sneaking around the building didn’t seem right. Her instincts told her the person had entered the building either posing as a delivery person, or a client.

“What happens when somebody delivers something at the back entrance?” she asked returning to the reception desk.

The woman looked at her quizzically. “I’m not sure I understand you. What do you mean by what happens?”

“Who takes the delivery? Where is it put?”

“Who takes it depends on what the delivery is. Anyone can take a delivery. If it’s office supplies or something like that, it goes immediately into a room near the back door. If it’s documents or mail, there’s also a mailroom there.”

“So if I were making a delivery, there would be no reason for me to go much further than the back door.”

“That’s correct.”

The sniper sailed in the front door, Lauren realized with growing excitement. “Can you remember who came into this reception area between nine and two?” she asked.

The receptionist pulled up a calendar on her computer. “There weren’t that many clients yesterday because of what happened,” she murmured studying her screen. “Let me see. There were a total of seven appointments yesterday morning – all before lunch. David Foster was in court in the morning, so he had nothing scheduled until afternoon. Wait a minute,” she suddenly remembered. “How could I have forgotten? He had an appointment immediately after lunch!”

“What time was Mr. Foster’s after-lunch appointment?”

“Two o’clock. But the client arrived twenty minutes early. I would have remembered him if only for that reason. Though he would be hard to forget.”

Lauren’s brows arched in a question mark. “What made that particular client so memorable?”

“The man was drop-dead gorgeous,” the receptionist confided, girl-to-girl. “I could hardly keep my eyes off him. He was as good looking as they come, like a model out of a magazine. But the thing that stood out about him most was his eyes. I’ve never seen such riveting eyes. They were almost feline, the color of clear amber.”

Lauren’s sharp intake of breath was audible, but seeming not to notice, the receptionist rattled on, “He was about five eleven. Dark hair, kind of tousled. You know the look. Very well dressed. Nice hands. He was English. He didn’t say he was, but I could tell from his accent. One of those highbrow English accents.”

“What was his name?” Lauren forced herself to ask.

“Philip Duncan.”

The name was not the same, but Lauren already knew the answer to her next question. “Had you ever seen Mr. Duncan before?”

“No. He doesn’t live on the island from what I gather. But then Mr. Foster has a lot of international clients, land investors, hoteliers, that kind of thing.”

With dread Lauren asked, “Where was Mr. Gorgeous when the assassination took place?”

The receptionist blinked. “I’m not sure. There were people everywhere it seems. He was here in this room…I guess.” “Now I remember!” she at last recalled. “He may have been in the restroom. He asked if he could use the restroom while he was waiting on Mr. Foster. I remember thinking he was taking an awfully long time. But then the next thing I knew, he was standing over there at the door looking lost. He didn’t have a clue what was going on. It must have been quite a shock for him when he discovered the Prime Minister had been killed, almost in front of his eyes.”

Lauren stared at her in horror. “Where is the restroom?” she asked weakly.

“One floor up – on the fifth floor.”

FORTY

A bone weary Robert Palmer paced the floor. Sitting not far from him, Scotland Yard veteran Bruce Wilson stroked his chin contemplatively. Having just rushed from London to assist the C.I.D. with the investigation of the murder of Erick Freeman, Wilson was also suffering the effects of lack of sleep. As Palmer continued to pace the floor, he ran through everything that had taken place thus far. Within hours of Erick Freeman’s death, he told Wilson, it had become clear the assassination had been a professional undertaking. The probable suspect, in Palmer’s opinion, was an Englishman by the name of Philip Duncan who had visited Foster & Foster at the exact time the assassination took place. Palmer had wasted no time soliciting the services of INTERPOL to help track Duncan down. INTERPOL had responded promptly, however with negative results. There was no record of a UK passport in the name of Philip Duncan. Neither had any passenger going by that name arrived in the UK in the twelve hours following the assassination. Whatever his real name, the man had disappeared without a trace after being checked and cleared by Special Forces immediately before leaving for the airport. Philip Duncan, or whatever his real name was, had slipped through their fingers with a wave and a smile.

Wilson finally spoke, “You say no shells were found when your men went over that room?”

“No shells, no gun fire residue, no weapon. The room was as clean as a whistle. And we turned the entire building inside out. In addition, every car in the immediate vicinity was searched within minutes of the crime. I don’t see how someone could have slipped out of the area with a rifle. Our men were thorough. Which means the weapon is hidden somewhere under our noses.”

“Outside garbage containers were checked also?”

“Yes, everything someone could have dumped a gun into.”

Wilson frowned in thought. “If he wasn’t frisked, he may have managed to hide something like a sniper pistol on himself. They’re long range, but discreet.”

“That’s a remote possibility, but we’ve narrowed it down to a rifle.”

“What puzzles me is the back door lock,” Palmer confided. “There were new pick marks on the lock cylinders, so there was definitely a fairly recent attempt at a break-in. If Duncan was able to waltz in and out posing as a client, there would have been little point in him trying to break in.” Just then, a Crime Lab specialist, also on loan from Scotland Yard, entered the room.

“You got something?” Palmer asked.

“Yes, here are the results of the test patterns, Chief Inspector. The shots were fired from a distance of two hundred and ten yards, 192.024 meters.”

Palmer took the report. “Where would that place the sniper?”

“I’d say the middle of the fifth floor of the Foster & Foster building.”

Palmer gave Wilson a studious look as the lab man left them. “Well, that pretty much confirms our suspicion,” he grunted. He walked over to a long table against the wall where the floor plan of the law offices was spread out. Wilson went and stood beside him. Together, they scanned the fifth floor. Palmer pointed to a location on the side facing the square. “The window in this room was open a crack when our men went in to inspect it,” he told Wilson. “Since the room is used only for storage, an open window pretty much confirms the forensic report.” Palmer paused in thought. “The only thing is our men found the door locked when they searched the building. From what we learned, the room is always kept under lock and key.”

“That would suggest the sniper had a key,” Wilson suggested. “But even if he had a key, how did he get as far as that room without being detected?”

“Unless he’d been hiding out there from the night before – which would fit in with the lock being tampered with.”

Wilson pursed his lips. “However, that would eliminate Duncan as a suspect.”

Neither said anything for a minute. Wilson was the first to speak again. “It seems the sniper would have had to have had access to the building to survey it. Follow me here: he enters the building by the back door when no one is around, scopes it out for the best location for his hit, positions himself, waits it out, bingo.”