In the Presence of the Enemy

by Elizabeth George

  St. James took the tape recorder, the envelope, and the sample of Luxford’s writing to the top floor of the house. The other men followed him. The tension between them was palpable. Feeling it like a throbbing fog, St. James marvelled at the fact that Deborah had successfully coped as long as she had done with the two men’s obvious need to beat each other to a pulp.

  “What’s this all about?” Stone demanded.

  “Eliminating a few of my concerns,” St. James responded. He flipped on the overhead lights of the lab and went to one of the grey steel cupboards, where he pulled out an ink pad and half a dozen heavy white cards. He set these on one of the worktables, adding to them a jar of powder, a large fluffy brush, and the small torch he’d carried in his pocket that day.

  “You first, please,” he said to Dennis Luxford, who was leaning against the jamb of the laboratory door as Alexander Stone prowled among the worktables, scowling at the mass of St. James’s equipment. “Then Mr. Stone.”

  “What?” Stone asked.

  “Fingerprints. Merely a formality, but one I’d like to get out of the way. Mr. Luxford…?”

  Dennis Luxford shot Stone a long look before he walked to the worktable and allowed St. James to take his fingerprints. It was a look that communicated his continued and complete cooperation in addition to his having nothing to hide.

  St. James said, “Mr. Stone…?”

  “Why the hell—”

  “As he said,” Luxford commented while he wiped the ink from his fingers, “we’re eliminating his concerns.”

  Stone hissed, “Shit,” under his breath, but he came forward and allowed himself to be fingerprinted as well.

  Having taken their prints, St. James turned to the tape recorder. He examined it first with the torch’s light, looking for patent prints that would show themselves when the recorder was held at the appropriate angle. He popped the tape from inside the cassette and did the same. Nothing showed in the light.

  While the other two men watched from opposite ends of the worktable, he dipped his brush into the powder—he’d chosen red as the most workable contrast to the black recorder itself—and dusted it lightly, one side at a time.

  “It’s been wiped clean,” he commented when no prints became visible under the powder.

  He went through the same process with the tiny cassette. Again, nothing emerged.

  “So what bloody concerns are we eliminating?” Stone demanded. “He’s not a fool. He’s not going to leave his prints on anything.”

  St. James made a noise of agreement in his throat. “The first concern’s been addressed, then, hasn’t it? He isn’t a fool.” He flipped the recorder so that its back was exposed. He slid open the cover of the battery compartment, removed it, and laid it on the table. Gently, using a scalpel that he took from a drawer, he removed the batteries as well. These he set on a sheet of white paper. He took the torch and directed it both upon the back side of the battery compartment’s cover and upon the two batteries themselves. He smiled at what he saw. “At least not a complete fool,” he said. “But then, no one actually thinks of everything.”

  “Prints?” Luxford asked.

  “One very nice patent on the back of the cover. Some partials on the batteries.” He used the powder again. The other men stood silently as he dusted, brushing carefully in the direction of the flow of the print, removing excess powder with a puff of breath. He kept his eyes on the prints—admiring them, studying them—as he reached for the pressure-wound tape. The back of the cover, he knew, would be easy to work with. The batteries would prove more difficult.

  He carefully pressed the tape onto the prints, making certain he was leaving no pockets of air. Then he pressed harder, using his thumb on the cover of the battery compartment, using a pencil’s rubber on the batteries themselves. He lifted the tape in one motion and then pressed the prints onto the extra cards he’d taken from the cupboard. He quickly labelled them.

  He indicated the print that had come from the back of the battery cover. He pointed out the ridges and the fact that they flowed up and inward. He said, “Thumbprint, right hand. The others—from the batteries—it’s harder to say because they’re partials. I’d guess index finger and thumb.”

  St. James compared them to Stone’s first. He used a magnifying glass, more for effect than for anything else because he could see they were not his prints. He went on to Luxford’s with much the same results. The whorls on all three of the thumbprints—Stone’s, Luxford’s, and the print from the recorder—were completely different, one plain, one accidental, and the other double looped.

  Stone seemed to read St. James’s conclusion from his face. He said, “You can’t be surprised. He’s not in this alone. He can’t be.”

  St. James made no immediate reply. Instead, he took the sample of Luxford’s printing and compared it to the notes he and Eve Bowen had received. He took his time about studying the letters, the spaces between words, the small peculiarities. Again, he could see no point of comparison.

  He raised his head. He said, “Mr. Stone, I want you to see reason because you’re the only one who’s going to be able to convince your wife. If the tape recording hasn’t convinced you of the urgency of—”

  “Jesus Christ.” Stone’s voice was filled more with wonder than with outrage. “He’s got you as well. But that’s no surprise. He’s the one who hired you in the first place. So what else could we expect but that you’d support his claim to be uninvolved?”

  “For God’s sake, Stone, see reason,” Luxford said.

  “I see reason just fine,” Stone replied. “You’re out to ruin my wife and you’ve found the means to do it. As well as the personnel to help you carry it out. This”—a jerk of his thumb to encompass the room—“is all part of the pretence.”

  “If you believe that, go to the police,” St. James said.

  “Of course.” Stone smiled without humour. “You’ve set us up so that’s our only recourse. And all of us know where bringing in the police will take us. Right to the newspapers. Right where Luxford wants us. All of this—the notes, the tape recording, the fingerprints—is nothing more than part of a trail we’re meant to follow, one that’s intended to lead us to play Luxford’s game. Eve and I won’t do it.”

  “With Charlotte’s life hanging in the balance?” Luxford said. “God in heaven, man, you must see at this point that you can’t take the risk that some maniac will kill her.”

  Stone spun in his direction. Luxford’s stance changed swiftly, in preparation.

  St. James said, “Mr. Stone, hear me. If Mr. Luxford wanted to throw us off the track, he wouldn’t have arranged for someone to leave a single fine thumbprint on the inside of the tape recorder. He would have arranged to leave prints all over it. That print on the recorder—as well as the ones on the batteries—tells us that the kidnapper made a simple mistake. He didn’t buy fresh batteries when he wanted Charlotte to record her message. He merely tested the ones that were in there already and forgot that when he first put them in—however long ago that was—he would have left his prints on them and on the back of the compartment’s cover. That’s what happened. He used gloves for the rest. He wiped the cassette and the recorder clean. And I’d be willing to bet that if we test the kidnapping notes for fingerprints as well—which we can do, although it’ll take more time than I believe we have—we’ll find only Mr. Luxford’s and mine on his and only your wife’s on hers. Which will take us nowhere. Which will cause delay. Which, whether you want to hear it or not, will put your stepdaughter’s life at greater risk. I’m not suggesting that you urge your wife to allow Mr. Luxford to run his story in the paper. I am suggesting that you urge your wife to phone the authorities.”

  “It’s one and the same,” Stone said.

  Luxford seemed to snap. His fist hit the worktable. “I’ve had ten years to ruin your wife,” he said. “Ten God damn years when I could have slapped her face on the front page of two different papers and humiliated the hell out of her
. But I haven’t done it. Have you ever wondered why?”

  “The time wasn’t right.”

  “Listen to me! You’ve said you know what I am. All right. You know what I am. I’m a man of absolutely no compunction. I don’t need the God damn time to be right. If I’d wanted to run the story of my relationship with Evelyn, I would have run it without a second thought. I’ve no respect for her. Her politics revolt me. I know what she is, and believe me I’d love to expose her to the world. But I haven’t. I’ve wanted to time and again, but I haven’t. So think, man. Ask yourself why.”

  “Why would you smear yourself if you could avoid it?”

  “This goes beyond me.”

  “Really? To whom?”

  “For God’s sake. To my daughter. Because she’s my daughter.” Luxford paused, as if waiting for the information to sink into Stone’s brain. In the moment that passed before Luxford spoke again, St. James saw the subtle change in Stone: the marginal slumping of the shoulders, the curve of the fingers as if he wished to grasp something that wasn’t there. Luxford said more quietly, “If I’d aimed for Evelyn, I’d have ended up hitting Charlotte. Why would I put my own child through that? Knowing she’s my child. I live in the world I’ve created, Mr. Stone. Believe me, I know how the publicity would ricochet off Evelyn and strike the girl.”

  Stone said, his voice dull, “Those were Eve’s words as well. She won’t make a move because she wants to protect Charlie.”

  Luxford looked as if he’d have liked to argue this point. But instead he said, “Then you must convince her to make a move. Whatever the move may be. It’s the only way.”

  Stone rested his knuckles on the top of the worktable. He ran them back and forth and watched their movement. “I wish to God that there was a God to tell me what to do,” he said quietly to himself, his eyes on his hand.

  The others said nothing. Outside, somewhere down in the street a child’s voice called, “You liar! You dirt-face! You said you would and you didn’t and I’m going to tell! I am!”

  Stone drew a deep breath. He swallowed, raised his head. “Let me use your telephone,” he said to St. James.

  11

  WHEN MR. CZVANEK left Eve Bowen’s office, he was apparently satisfied that his local MP had heard, sympathised with, and vowed to do something about his complaint: the recent opening of a video arcade directly beneath his flat in Praed Street. It was a location already made noisy by the presence of traffic, by its proximity to Paddington Station, and by the nightly business manoeuvring of rent boys and streetwalkers that the police were doing nothing about despite his regular phone calls to them. Mr. Czvanek—who lived with his ageing mother, his wife, and their six children in three rooms from which they hoped to build a better life—was fast losing his dreams, not to mention his patience.

  He’d said in his broken English, “I come to you as last hope of my family, Mrs. Parliament. My neighbours, they say I talk to MP for getting help. My family, we not mind the street, the cars. But my little ones, is for them no good to grow up with looking at sin everywhere. These people who sell themselves on the street. These young ones with their smokes and their drugs in the video arcade. This is for my children no good. My neighbours, they say you can make difference. You can make…” He struggled for a word and as he did so, he twisted the trouser turn-up on his left ankle where it was balanced against his right knee. He’d been doing so for most of their interview. It was fairly well mangled as he reached the conclusion of his remarks. “You can make the bad ones shove away. So my children grow up to be proper. Is a father’s dream, how the children grow up. You have children of your own, Mrs. Parliament?” He’d picked up the politically correct family photograph of Eve, Alex, and Charlotte all looking simultaneously winsome and devoted to one another. He left a shovel-size thumbprint on the silver frame. “This your family? Your child? So you understand?”

  Eve had made the correct noises and the correct notes. She’d explained the nature of the committee that was currently studying the problem of enhancing policing in the area. She expounded upon the fact that Praed Street was a centre for business as well as for vice and while she could guarantee that more crackdowns would be made upon the fleshpeddlers of the area, she couldn’t, unfortunately, control the businesses that lined the street since the street was zoned for such establishments. So the video arcade was probably going to remain his close neighbour unless lack of interest forced it out of business. She could promise, however, that the local police would make periodic inspections of the arcade itself, checking for drugs, alleviating illegal drinking, and sending young ones on their way after hours. She said that there were always compromises one had to make in living in big cities. In Mr. Czvanek’s life, the video arcade was going to be one of them, at least for the present.

  He’d seemed satisfied. He’d stood. He’d smiled. He’d said expansively, “What a great country, this. A man like me to see Mrs. Parliament. Just to walk in and sit down and see Mrs. Parliament myself. A great thing, this.”

  Eve had shaken the man’s hand as she always shook her constituents’ hands upon their visits to her surgery: one of theirs sandwiched between both of hers. When the door shut behind him, she buzzed her secretary. She said, “Give me a few minutes, Nuala. How many more?” to which Nuala replied in a low voice from the outer office, “Six. And Mr. Woodward’s phoned again. He said it’s quite urgent. He’s said you’re to phone him as soon as you have a break.”

  “What’s it about?”

  “I did ask, Ms. Bowen.” Nuala’s voice indicated how little she liked Joel Woodward’s propensity for playing at spymaster, guarding information as if the national security were involved every time he had a message to pass on. “Shall I phone him for you? Get him on the line?”

  “I’ll see the other constituents first. Presently.”

  Eve removed her spectacles and laid them on the desk. She’d been at the constituency association office since three o’clock. It was her regular Friday afternoon surgery, but nothing except the flow of constituents and the meeting scheduled with her association chairman had been regular about it. Instead of being in command of every interview, with a ready response for each question and request, she’d found her attention drifting. More than once under the guise of taking notes, she’d had to have points repeated and elucidations made. While this was normal operating procedure for an MP meeting with constituents at a weekend surgery, it was not normal operating procedure for Eve Bowen. She prided herself on a capacious memory and a prodigiously facile mind. That she was having difficulty now, meeting with constituents whose troubles she should have been able to field, to catalogue, and to solve with barely an expenditure of brain power, told her how easily she could be interpreted as experiencing the fissure she had been determined no one would see.

  Going through the motions was what Charlotte’s disappearance had called for. So far she’d managed it, but the strain was starting to shake her. And the fact that she was feeling shaken rattled her more than did Charlotte’s disappearance itself. It had been only forty-eight hours since her daughter had been taken, and Eve knew that in order to win this battle with Dennis Luxford she had to hold on for a lengthy siege. The only way to do this was to focus completely on the task at hand.

  For this reason, she had not returned Joel Woodward’s phone calls. She could not risk allowing her political assistant to throw her off her stride any more than she was already thrown off it.

  She slipped out the side door of her office, the one that led down the corridor to the rear of the building. There, she shut herself into the loo where she washed her palms of Mr. Czvanek’s oily handshake. She patted a thin layer of cover-up beneath her eyes, and she used rose pencil on her upper lip. She brushed a hair off her jacket. She straightened the collar of her blouse. She stepped back from the mirror and evaluated her appearance. Normal, she decided. Save for her nerves, which were jangled and had been jangled since she’d left her office in Parliament Square.

 
The encounter with the journalist had been nothing. More, it had meant less than nothing. MPs were accosted by journalists—lobby journalists and others—every day of the week. They wanted quick answers to questions, they wanted interviews, they wanted background information, they wanted confirmation of a story. They promised anonymity, they guaranteed accuracy, they swore another source would be the one named for purposes of attribution. But they were always around, either in the members’ lobby at the Commons, or coming and going at the Home Office and Whitehall, or lounging with an eye to possible activity in One Parliament Square. So it was nothing unusual for a journalist to approach her as she crossed the lobby on her way to her car, already an hour late for her Friday afternoon’s surgery at the office in Marylebone. What had been unusual was everything that followed that initial approach.

  Her name had been Tarp. Diana Tarp, she said, although Eve could read that well enough on the press pass she wore on a chain round her neck. She represented the Globe and she wanted to arrange an interview with the Undersecretary of State. As soon as possible, if Ms. Bowen didn’t mind.

  Eve had been so surprised by this frontal approach that she stopped in her progress to the door where she could see her Rover and its driver waiting at the kerb. She’d said, “I beg your pardon?” And before Diana Tarp could respond, she continued with, “If you want an interview, Ms. Tarp, may I suggest you phone my office and not accost me like a streetwalker with a proposition? Excuse me, please.”

  As she moved past the journalist, Diana Tarp said quietly, “Actually, I’d thought you’d be grateful for a more intimate approach, rather than have me go through your office personnel.”

  Eve had turned towards the door, but she slowed, then stopped. “What?”

  The journalist gave her a level look. “You know how offices work, Ms. Bowen. A journalist phones in but won’t leave a precise message. Five minutes later half the staff knows. Five more minutes later and the rest of the staff is speculating why. I thought you might like to avoid that. The knowledge and the speculation, that is.”