Mrs. John Doe

by Tom Savage

  Room 4 was surprisingly clean and tidy, with a big bed, an armchair, a table with two chairs, and a tiny bathroom with a shower. They sat at the table, and Craig proceeded to lay out roast beef and chicken sandwiches, potato chips, bottled water, a huge can of Foster’s lager, two coffees, and two Cadbury fruit-and-nut bars. They fell on the meal without a word, she taking the water and he the beer. All the food disappeared, and they were on the coffee and chocolate bars when he finally spoke.

  “Okay, let me call London, and then I want you to tell me everything you heard in the park again.”

  She nodded, picked up her bag, and went into the bathroom. The facilities here were as clean as the room, she was glad to note. She brushed her teeth and washed her face, frowning at her reflection as she recalled her similar actions in Vivian’s upstairs bathroom four hours ago. When she came back out into the room, Craig was just ending his call. He pocketed the phone and reached for his coffee.

  “The house is secure,” he said. “The agency sent people there, and the police have been kept out of it. The woman from the grocer’s was told that the dinner was canceled and the cream wasn’t needed. Mr. and Mrs. Howard and Mrs. Bellini have been taken to the morgue. There’s still a call out for me, but I’m not a suspect; the police just want to question me. They know I was in the takeaway at the crucial time, and someone has come forward who saw a large black man running from my building—that would be our friend Andy Gilbert, who’s in the hospital with a head concussion and broken ribs. They’re at his bedside, waiting to arrest him. He’s unconscious but expected to make a full recovery. He’ll probably wake up in Dartmoor, but that’s his lookout.”

  “Oh, thank God!” Nora cried. “But can’t they force him to wake up? Drugs or electrodes or whatever? It may be illegal, but I don’t care! That man knows where Jeff is!”

  Craig didn’t seem to be at all disturbed by her sudden violent outburst, but he was definitely more realistic about their predicament. “No, Nora. In his condition, any of those things could kill him sooner than he could tell us anything. As little use as he is at the moment, he’d be a lot less useful if he were to die.”

  She didn’t like admitting defeat, but what was left of her common sense told her that he was right, and it was galling.

  “I suppose,” she muttered at last. “I guess we’ll just have to concentrate on the good news.”

  He nodded. “Yes, the good news is, you didn’t kill anyone and I’m not a murder suspect. But the bad news is, we can’t question Andy Gilbert, and we still haven’t found the Frenchman and his henchmen. Hey, that’s pretty good—the Frenchman and his henchmen! I wish I felt like laughing. So, what do you remember from the park? What, exactly, did Andy and this Yussuf character say?”

  Nora was still recovering, torn between her relief that Andy Gilbert was alive and her frustration that he was unable to communicate, and it took a few moments for her to organize her thoughts. She repeated the conversation on the park bench as best she could, and he listened intently.

  “Okay,” he said when she was finished. “I agree with you; it sounds like Mr. Baron—Jeff—is alive. They were talking about him in the present tense. That’s good, but I’m damned if I know what the rest of it could mean, Copperfield and Laura. The only Copperfield I ever heard of is in the Dickens story, and I don’t know anyone named Laura.”

  “That’s what Bill said,” Nora told him, wincing at the memory of the house in St. John’s Wood. She was suddenly overwhelmed by a sense of futility. She slumped over the table, shutting her tired eyes. “What can we do? We’re no closer to a solution than—”

  “You get some sleep, Nora,” he said. “Just for a while. I’ll think of something, don’t you worry.”

  She nodded and went over to the bed. She sat on it, removing her boots.

  “Craig,” she said, “where do we go from here? Back to London? If the police aren’t looking for you anymore—”

  “No,” he said, “we’re going to continue heading east. Mr. Baron was taken from King’s Lynn train station, and I don’t think they’d chance taking him too far. He’s probably being held somewhere near there. The Frenchman must be holed up there too. Where else in England would he have gone? And Nassim Gamal and the man and woman who arrived from wherever—”

  Nora had to think a moment. “Libya.”

  “—Libya. All these people are meeting up someplace, and that place is most likely where they’re holding Mr. Baron. In the morning, you and I are going to Norfolk. My people in London are calling me back with the address of Mr. Howard’s house there, and I figure it’s the best place to start looking.”

  Nora took off her jacket and lay down on the bed. Staring up at the ceiling, she said, “We only have a few hours. Three o’clock tomorrow afternoon…”

  “Yes, but now we have something we didn’t have before. We have Mr. Howard’s entire agency. They’re all looking for Maurice Dolin, and Mr. Howard’s death has convinced them that Dolin is involved in the arms deal. Our work is finally being acknowledged by the brass. More than acknowledged: They’ve joined us in it. By noon tomorrow, Norfolk will be swarming with field agents. All roads and airports will be monitored, and all big cars and lorries will be stopped and inspected. Dolin and his friends won’t be able to go anywhere. Rest now, Nora. I have a good feeling about this.”

  Nora nodded and shut her eyes. The pillow was soft beneath her head. Her last thought before sleep overcame her was that finding Dolin and the weapons was all well and good, but it wouldn’t necessarily save her husband…

  She was awakened a moment later, or so she thought. Craig was gently shaking her and calling her name. She sat up on the bed, instantly alert, surprised to see sunlight streaming in through the curtains at the window.

  “What?” she gasped. “What time is it?”

  “Get up, Nora. It’s 9:15, time to hit the road.”

  She looked up at him, at his beaming face, and felt a glimmer of hope. “What’s happened?”

  In answer, he reached for her hand and pulled her up from the bed. She stood in her stockinged feet, blinking at him as he held up a notepad before her face. Three words were written there in block letters. The first two words were COWPER FIELD.

  “What’s this?” she asked.

  Craig was grinning in triumph. “The head office in London called me back just now, and I wrote down what they told me. They were looking for a Copperfield in the Norfolk area, and they found it. A small private airfield near Titchwell Marsh, you know, the bird reserve. Not Copperfield—Cowper Field!”

  Nora nodded, then lowered her gaze to the third word: LAURELS. She stared. “Laurels? What’s Laurels?”

  Craig Elder’s grin grew even wider. “That’s where we’re going. Not Laura’s—Laurels! It’s the name of Mr. Howard’s country house!”

  Nora didn’t even bother to put on her boots. Snatching them up from the floor, she grabbed her coat and bag and marched to the door, with Craig right behind her.

  Chapter 40

  On the road to Norfolk, Nora got the lay of the land. They’d stopped at a petrol station to fill up, and Nora had asked the attendant for a local map. What he’d sold her turned out to be a guidebook to the region with a big foldout map attached. As Craig drove them north from Cambridge along the motorway, she studied the map and read the brief descriptions of the countryside.

  The village where they were going, Sedgeford, was a tiny farming community, notable for its round-towered church and for the Magazine Cottage, once an actual arsenal for storing gunpowder and weapons hundreds of years ago. The cottage and Magazine Farm were highlights along Peddars Way, the ancient Roman road that ran through the northern edge of the village. The easternmost royal residence, Sandringham House, was nearby, but the queen was rarely there, according to the book.

  Sedgeford was a few dozen kilometers northeast of King’s Lynn, where Jeff had last been seen. The Wash, the big estuary carved into the northern side of the Norfolk peninsula, was jus
t to the west, and the North Sea was seven kilometers to the north. The North Sea was where the bird sanctuary Craig had mentioned was located, and—much more important to Nora—the locale of Cowper Field, a private airstrip for cargo planes bringing goods to the local towns and villages. She followed the line of the road north from the village to the airfield on the map, calculating. Seven kilometers: about four miles. Carrying parts for weapons of mass destruction from Laurels to Cowper Field would be a matter of a few minutes’ drive, then a cargo plane to an unknown destination, definitely not in England. The Middle East, eventually. She glanced at her watch: 11:07.

  She didn’t need the guidebook to tell her how flat Norfolk was; she could see that through the windshield. As they neared the easternmost coast of England, mountains and hills vanished completely, replaced by flatlands filled with crops: barley and beets, according to the pamphlet, but also fields of glistening golden wheat, as far as she could see. At one point they passed a lavender farm, and the rich scent filled the car.

  What the guidebook did not indicate was the exact location of Laurels, or of any of the larger homes in the area. There was apparently a downtown, or high street or whatever, in the village, but the meager population—just over six hundred at the last census—was spread out over a six-mile area. They’d have to ask someone for directions.

  Craig was clearly thinking the same thing. He left the motorway at the proper exit and drove along a small country road, heading north. As they passed the first signpost to mention the village by name—SEDGEFORD: 2 KM—he slowed the car. A tall, thin, elderly man in well-worn tweeds was walking along the verge of the road with a beautiful red setter. The car came abreast of him, and Craig leaned out to speak.

  “Morning, sir. We’re looking for a place called Laurels. Would you—”

  It was as far as he got. With a hearty grin and a bellowed, “G’day to ye, lad!” the old man launched into a monologue, with much pointing and gesticulating, but Nora—for all her dramatic training in speech and regional dialects—couldn’t understand a single word. Fortunately, Craig was much more attuned to the heavy accents of rural England.

  “Of course,” he said to the man, and he leaped from the car and opened the rear door. The big dog jumped up onto the backseat, followed by its master, who huffed and puffed a great deal as he settled himself. Craig got back in and continued along the road.

  Nora smiled at their new passengers and reached out to stroke the dog’s soft head, getting a friendly lick of her hand in return. The old man laughed and spoke some more gibberish, and Craig responded to this with a few brisk nods. They came into the village, such as it was, a lovely church and a few other buildings, and Craig pulled over near one of them and stopped. The old man and dog got out, and with a hearty handshake for Craig and a winking smile for Nora, they disappeared inside the door beside a swinging sign. A pub, of course.

  “What was that all about?” she asked as they drove on.

  Craig laughed. “That was Mr. Wycliff and Rex, out for a morning constitutional before repairing to their favorite haunt for an early lunch, which I suspect will be mostly liquid. But he told me where we’re going, anyway. We turn here. Now we look for Peddars Way, the oldest road in Great Britain. We pass Magazine Cottage, and go on until we reach the forest beyond the fields, then we turn left, and it’s a mile down that road to the country estates. That’s what Mr. Wycliff called them, anyway. Apparently, Laurels was once a horse farm, but now the ooties have arrived.”

  “The ooties?”

  “Outies, in our language. Outsiders. Worse: Londoners! The locals are still getting used to the recent influx of tourism and all the new bed-and-breakfast hotels in the area, but actual city dwellers moving here to live has caused no end of a scandal. He knew the previous owner of Laurels, and he met Mr. Howard once, in the pub, with—with Solange. But he hasn’t seen them in a while, and now, in the last few days, there are some real ooties about the place. Blackies, to use his word. Foreign nationals, I should think.”

  Nora thought about this. Nassim Gamal and the man and woman from Libya. And others, perhaps, British citizens from that part of the world, converging at Laurels for the exchange or the sale or whatever it was. And in the middle of all this activity, her husband. She shut her eyes, willing herself to remain calm, reminding herself that the cavalry—the local police and MI5—were on the way.

  The pretty stone Magazine Cottage came and went, then more fields, and finally the trees. Craig slowed the car and turned left, driving along a bumpy lane beside the outer edge of what appeared to be a substantial forest. It was then, gazing out at the trees, that Nora remembered her remarkably similar journey three days before, in France. Pinède had been high in the mountains, and Sedgeford was on level ground, but her paths to them had been the same. Both times, she’d left the capital city and traveled to the easternmost boundary of the country, to a tiny forest village. Remembering what had happened to her in the first one, she glanced over her shoulder at her bag on the backseat, grateful for the little revolver wrapped in her shawl at the bottom of it.

  She wondered if she’d need it.

  They passed a big stone house set well back from the road, with iron gates blocking the entrance to a long driveway, and Craig slowed the car again, studying the view ahead of them. A few more yards, and he suddenly turned right, into the trees. Nora stared as two huge evergreens appeared before them, then relaxed when she saw that they were actually driving on an unpaved track between the trunks, heading directly into the dark woods. She glanced over at Craig, deciding not to question him as he navigated the car along the incredibly narrow path.

  The scents of pine and green grass drifted through her window, and she breathed deeply. She assumed this was the way to Laurels and at any moment they would emerge from the trees to find a farmhouse and stables surrounded by fields like the ones they’d been passing all morning. She was bracing herself for her first sight of her husband’s prison when Craig suddenly stopped the car and cut the engine.

  “Okay,” he said before she could speak. “The rest of the way is on foot.”

  “Where are we?” she asked.

  “Well, if I caught everything Mr. Wycliff was saying a mile a minute, Laurels is the next farm that way.” He waved an arm to his left. “But we can’t just roll right in and say howdy. We don’t know what we’re facing, but we will before we do anything. Let’s spy on them for a while, see what we can see, then I can call my friends. I think we’ll need them.”

  Nora nodded, remembering Leicester Square yesterday afternoon. “Yes, Andy Gilbert and Yussuf were planning to arrive at noon. I guess Andy won’t be showing up after all, but the other one might. That’s one more for their side.” She checked her watch again: 11:42.

  Craig grunted, frowning. “Yes, it is.” Nora got her bag from the backseat, and Craig reached into the glove compartment in front of her and took out a pair of field glasses. “Okay, come on.”

  They got out of the car, and Craig locked it and dropped the keys into the pocket of his jacket before marching off through the trees to their left. Nora followed, instantly regretting that she’d left the cheap gray coat in the car. It was chilly in this thick forest, even with the late-morning sunlight bearing down through the leaves above them. They crunched their way through dried leaves, moving at an uphill slant. Nora glanced around, wondering what animals lived here. If there were any, they weren’t making any noise; even the birds were silent. Aside from the crackling of the leaves, there wasn’t a sound in the world.

  The sunlight through the branches brightened, and they emerged from the forest into open space. A split-rail fence was here, and Craig immediately dropped to one knee, pulling Nora down beside him. They knelt behind the fence, looking out at the wide vista before them.

  There it was: Laurels. It was slightly below them; the forest was apparently on a hill of some height, rare for this region of fens and fields. The main house was an impressive, long, two-story manse of white brick
and stone, with a sloping slate roof and a porch at the entrance. The drive leading to it curved into a circle in front of it, and there were other buildings beyond it, a big barn and attached stables. The fields she’d been expecting were modest, perhaps fifty yards of grass at the back and on this side, closest to where they crouched. The far buildings, the barn and stables, were at the edge of the woods, with trees around and behind them. There was a big circular area in the nearer field beside the house, enclosed by split-rail fencing, and Nora realized that it was a disused corral.

  Craig raised the field glasses to his face, and Nora tried to see where he was looking. A low-slung, jazzy-looking gold sports car was parked between two laurel trees near the barn.

  “Mr. Howard’s pride and joy,” Craig said. “That’s an Aston Martin from the sixties, exactly like the one in the James Bond movies. He bought it after—um—after he separated from Mrs. Howard. It’s the car your husband drove to King’s Lynn. Now it’s back here. I think that tells us something.”

  Nora leaned forward to peer at the rows of windows on the big house below them. She wondered which window was the room where Jeff was being held. She was lowering her hand into her shoulder bag, feeling for the shawl that was wrapped around the revolver, when Craig pointed down the front drive in the direction of the main road.

  “Look,” he whispered.

  Nora looked. As they watched from their hiding place, a big canvas-covered military-style truck turned in at the gates and rumbled slowly up the drive toward the house. It came around the curve and stopped at the porch steps. Two men got out of the cab, and the canvas at the back suddenly lifted. Two other men jumped down from the tailgate and joined them. All four men were wearing dark jackets and jeans and work boots, and all four had brown skin and black hair. South Asian, Nora thought, or Middle Eastern.

  The front door of the house opened, and two men came out to join the four in the driveway. The first man was big and as dark as the others, and Nora didn’t recognize him. But she immediately recognized the man who stood behind him in the doorway.