Skylark

by Sheila Simonson

  Outside it was drizzling, and the traffic hummed along the Fulham Road.

  "Where is Milos Vlaçek?" I took his arm. He was wearing a leather bomber jacket of the sort then fashionable among younger men. The leather felt cold and slimy under my fingers.

  "Where?" I repeated.

  "Hambly," he muttered, or something like that. His eyes darted. "Who are you?"

  "That's unimportant. All you need to know is that I can identify you to the police."

  "I do not know what you are talking about."

  "Milos has disappeared from the hospital, and the staff won't say what happened. I want to know where he is."

  "Hambly," he repeated. He was breathing unevenly, and his eyes still darted around. "The papers. You mentioned the...the document."

  "You know very well the police have it. Now stop evading me. Milos is a sick man. He needs proper medical care. I want to know where you've taken him."

  He was gaping at me. "The police have our document? Oh, no! That cannot be!"

  I was going to explain about the copy--probably an unwise impulse--when he whirled and hopped on the rear platform of a passing bus.

  I stepped into the street to follow him and was almost run over by a taxi. The driver was so agitated he actually tapped his horn, and I could see the elderly passenger waving a furled umbrella at me in the rear window. I began to sprint after the red double-decker bus, heels and all, but it turned north as I watched. The man in the bomber jacket jumped down. He was gone before I reached the corner.

  Chapter 9.

  I started back toward the hospital, feeling like the fool I was. Milos had disappeared, and I had just chased off our only lead to his whereabouts. If I returned to the hospital, Ann's Dragon Matron would give me a scolding or, worse, hail me off to the police station for perpetrating a fraud. The only logical course was to do what Jay would have told me to do from the first--go to the police of my own accord and take my humiliation neat.

  I caught a bus to the other end of the Fulham Road, because my respectable pumps hurt like hell, and walked down Lucan Place to the police station. I asked to see Inspector Thorne. Then I waited. Finally, Sgt. Wilberforce, cool as always, came for me and sat me down in Thorne's office.

  "Detective Inspector Thorne is not here at the moment, madam. Do you wish to add to your statement?" He sat behind Thorne's desk.

  The question threw me. I stared at his impassive features and discovered he did not like me. The silence between us stretched. "I have nothing further to say about Miss Beale's death. I came about Milos Vlaçek."

  "Yes?"

  "Do you know that he disappeared from St. Botolph's yesterday?"

  Something flickered in Wilberforce's eyes, but I couldn't read what it meant. "We know Mr. Vlaçek was discharged from hospital, yes."

  "The man has a punctured lung. He can't have been told to go home and take it easy. Be real, sergeant. Either Milos is in another hospital or he's dead. If he was transferred by police order, I wish you'd say so and put our minds at ease. Mrs. Veryan and I are afraid he may have been abducted."

  "What makes you say that?" Cagy. He fiddled with a silver cuff link.

  I threw up my hands. "I give up. I suppose you don't think I'm trustworthy, but you ought to know that I just spotted the younger foreigner we told you about, the one who handed Milos the Harrods bag Wednesday at the Barbican."

  His eyes narrowed. "Where?"

  "Waiting in the hospital lobby to speak to the matron. When I confronted him he ran off. I lost him a couple of blocks from the Earl's Court Tube station."

  Another long silence ensued. "Did you think to ask his name?"

  "No. He told the receptionist he was Milos's brother." I didn't mention my own imposture.

  Sgt. Wilberforce seemed to make up his mind. Slam. His shapely hands came down flat on the surface of the desk. The cuff links flashed. "May I suggest that you go back to your flat and stop interfering in police business? Things may be different in the States, what with lynch mobs and Guardian Angels and so on, but in Britain we frown on vigilantism. You are a material witness, Mrs. Dodge, a suspect in a murder case. We're asking very serious questions about your background."

  I tried to hold onto my temper, out of recognition that he was at least partly right, but the "Americans are not as me and thee" echo was too much.

  I stood up. "Ask away. I'll go back to my flat and sit there. Meanwhile, think about this. Milos bled all over my raincoat. That makes a difference to me. I care what happens to him. He may be just a waiter, a nonentity by English standards, but he's a decent human being, and he doesn't deserve to be written off because he's an alien. 'Wogs begin at Calais.' Is that the premise here?"

  He drew a sharp breath.

  I looked him right in the eye. "Something has happened to Milos. I can't ignore that, and neither can Ann, whatever you and Inspector Thorne may do or think, and whatever political expedience may dictate."

  I was glad of my Canadian suit and beastly pumps. I stalked out looking respectable. Wilberforce made no attempt to stop me.

  Walking back to the flat, I began to cool down. With every step my gloom deepened. Wilberforce probably thought I was a CIA agent, and I had just laid a mouthful of rhetoric on him that was bound to feed that suspicion. I'm a bookseller, I thought, making a mental speech. I am a former Olympic athlete. I am wholesome, for Godsake. My mother is a poet, and my father is a history professor, and I come from a long line of Quakers. I would no more kill Miss Beale than I would kill a poodle. Bad thought. Road pizza.

  I strode onto a zebra and brought traffic to a screeching halt.

  I'm innocent, I wanted to shout, but there is a sense in which no modern person is innocent. We make jokes about spooks and moles, but we continue to pay the taxes that support them. We do not inquire too closely into our investment portfolios. We accept government policies that violate our principles, because a majority agrees with the policies. We imagine that the terrorist's bomb will blow up someone else's airplane.

  Philosophy is poor company. By the time I reached my street I was looking at the situation from the police viewpoint. Maybe I had come on like a vigilante.

  I no-commented my way through the diminished but alert cordon of reporters and entered the flat. Ann was poring over maps. "Do you know that it's only four hours by train to Edinburgh?"

  "No kidding."

  She laid down the AA Atlas, which was the size of a small pillowcase. "What happened?"

  I told her of my encounter with Milos's delivery boy, omitting nothing, and did a terse summary of my session with Wilberforce, too.

  Ann wasn't interested in police procedure. "Hambly?"

  "He said that twice, but his accent was pretty thick. I may have misheard. Is Hambly a town?"

  She consulted the index of cities in the atlas. "I don't see it."

  "Brum." I poured myself a glass of water from a plastic bottle. London tap water suggests something out of Milton, so we were experimenting with salubrious eaux from Scotland and the Massif Central.

  "Brum?"

  "That is how native speakers refer to the city of Birmingham."

  "Well, imagine that. I have a cousin in Birmingham. Alabama." She rooted through the index. "Hammersley? Hampton Court? Hammersmith?"

  I brooded over my spring water.

  Ann was mumbling her way through the index. "Hamble. Hamsterly. Hanbury. Hanley...Henley. How about Henley? That's not far."

  "He said Hambly. As far as I could tell. Maybe it's an ancient Czech curse."

  "Could he have been saying Wembley?"

  "As in football? No."

  She set the atlas down. "What was his tone of voice?"

  I considered. "Impatient, as if anyone would know what he meant. He wasn't interested in Milos's location. When I mentioned the papers he almost hyperventilated. He wanted to know where they were."

  "Did you tell him your father had a copy?"

  "I just told him the police had the papers, and he m
oaned and said oh, no. Then he jumped on the bus."

  Ann got up and started pacing, which was difficult in the limited space available. "Hambly, Hamble, Henley."

  "I think they're going to arrest me for murder. Pin it on the nearest American. Just like the journalists."

  That caught her attention. "Now, Lark, honey..."

  The doorbell, as opposed to the gate buzzer, rang. One of the Worths--or the police, coming to take me into custody. The gate lock kept the reporters at bay.

  It was my turn to play butler. Trevor and Daphne Worth were standing in the areaway, Daphne glancing up at the reporters by the railing.

  Trevor gave me a winsome smile. "May we come in?"

  "Of course. How are you?" I was not in the right frame of mind for company, but Ann positively beamed. She cleared her maps and guides off the loveseat and installed the Worths there, offering coffee, tea, or sherry. We didn't even have sherry. They agreed to tea.

  I sat on one of the kitchen chairs and tucked my legs under. "My husband's flying in tomorrow."

  "Splendid!" Trevor favored me with one of those charming smiles that had to be useful selling Porsches.

  "So you said yesterday." Daphne gave a short, sharp nod. "Apropos of your husband's arrival, would you and Ann object to moving to the ground floor flat? We'd charge the same rent," she added as if one of us had squawked. In fact both of us were gaping at her.

  Ann recovered first. "I thought that flat was let to a French company."

  Trevor cleared his throat. "It was. The directeur called, however, very agitated over the scandal. He gave us a month's notice."

  "I don't think you'll have difficulty disposing of a two bedroom flat in this area," I murmured.

  "In the long run, no. Meanwhile, though, we could arrange for you to sublet."

  Ann said, "I beg your pardon, Trevor, Daphne, but I don't quite understand why you want us to move." She shot a glance at her almost-felonious roommate and added, "That is I could understand your kicking us out because of the press, but that's not what you're suggesting, is it?"

  Daphne had flushed red. "No! Good grief. The thing is..."

  "The thing is," Trevor intervened, amused, "Daph and I get on better at a distance. I'll take over this flat and leave her to Auntie's bric-a-brac. We thought you might not object to moving upstairs. There are two bedrooms and a telly."

  "And a telephone," Daphne chimed in.

  I said slowly, "If you want the same rent I don't see why not. What do you think, Ann?"

  "My land, it sounds like paradise. How soon can we move?"

  Daphne heaved a relieved sigh that fluttered a loose strand of hair. "Now, if you like. Trevor and I will be happy to help you carry your traps."

  We drank tea. Daphne gave us a small lecture on proper brewing methods.

  Two hours later we were installed in the pied-à-terre, and Ann was on the telephone giving the elder of her two sons a blow-by-blow account of his mother's adventures.

  The flat was quite a change from our basement cave. For one thing, the windows let in light. For another, Ann had a room to retreat to. It had been a slight strain for me to have to step over her recumbent form if I want a glass of milk at night, but it must have been a large strain for her.

  While I waited for her to finish her call, I sat in the living room and admired the French firm's taste. The furniture was upholstered in what looked like, but--thank God--was not, the hides of zebras. Pillows in burnt orange and ochre took the curse off the black and white. The carpet, a businesslike clay color, matched the heavy drapes, but cheerful gauze day-curtains blocked the stares of the curious. A black granite mantle served as foil for the tiny artificial log in the fireplace, and someone had selected handsomely mounted prints of African animals for the flat-white walls. One glass-topped end table bore what I hoped was a reproduction of a Benin bronze. The faint scent of Gauloises under the odor of furniture polish lent a suitable atmosphere to the hyper-masculine decor. We had moved from a cave to a lair. The only thing lacking was the head of an eland over the mantle.

  The bedroom was going to tickle Jay, whose taste runs to futons and austere Japanese screens. I disposed my clothes in the armoire before falling on the lush velvet coverlet of the double bed in a fit of giggles. Everything was done in shades of plum velvet, and a strategic mirror in one corner of the carved plaster ceiling suggested what a peek in the bedside table confirmed. A well-supplied pit of seduction. The thought of all those vinyl condoms was wonderfully cheering.

  Ann's bedroom, with its pale blue walls, dark blue carpet, and Renoir prints, was pleasant but much more businesslike. The small kitchen sported blond wood and white tiles, and appliances that had clearly never known the touch of human hands. We had been a little disappointed to discover that the fixtures in the bathroom were Best British, rather than French. There was, of course, no shower.

  According to Daphne, the firm manufactured ultra-modern explosives. For mining and construction, she had assured me with great earnestness. We were to pay her the rent if we had to stay on another week, but we'd have to keep a log of our telephone calls. She would deal with the French.

  When Ann finally hung up it was still only half past seven. There was no point in trying to reach Jay. He was somewhere between Los Angeles and Dallas, so I subtracted five hours instead of eight and called my parents. Dad hadn't yet received the parcel, but he promised to have the document translated as soon as it arrived.

  I could tell my mother was not best pleased that Dame Elizabeth had felt obliged to trudge down the stairs to the basement flat. Without exactly reproaching me, Ma indicated that she meant to call her friend and atone.

  Both parents were relieved I had not been arrested. Possibly they hadn't believed I would be. I told them they should have sat through the interrogation. They noted our new telephone number and promised to call again later in the week.

  When I hung up, Ann was heating steak-and-kidney pies in the tiny Krupp oven, and puzzling over the directions, which were translated from the German. I made a salad.

  "I'm a trial to my parents," I announced, rinsing lettuce.

  "All children are a trial to their parents, honey." She took two futuristic black plates from the dish cupboard. "Beau is thinking of marrying an ichthyologist."

  "You don't like fish?" I whirled the lettuce in the drier.

  "I like fish fine, and little Amy would be a nice child if she didn't wear three pairs of earrings at once, but neither of them has any money, and Beau is only a junior. I refuse to support a grandchild."

  "Amy's pregnant?"

  "Heavens, how you do go on. However, they'll probably decide having a baby and going to school at the same time is a fun thing to do. I had Beau my second year in graduate school, so I don't favor the idea. Besides I'm too young to be a grandmother." She clattered the cutlery.

  I portioned the salad makings between two bowls and topped them with oil and vinegar dressing. "How's your other son?"

  "Tommy's too caught up in the perils of being a freshman to cause trouble now. Give him six months."

  We chatted amicably about her offspring and my parents, ate, and watched the telly for an hour. Fortunately the news didn't feature us.

  I went in to my plum velvet bed early, because I meant to take off for Gatwick by nine. The trains ran from Victoria every fifteen minutes, but the trip took an hour, and Jay was due in at eleven fifteen. I wanted to be in place waiting for him.

  As I left the flat the next morning I heard Ann's alarm going off. She planned to spend the day at the British Museum, she had said, and not to wait dinner for her. I think she was being tactful, though there was less need now that we had so much luxurious room in the flat.

  I dressed in black tailored pants and a teal sweater with a crocheted collar, because Jay had told me the sweater deepened the color my eyes. It was raining a little, so I also wore the tan raincoat and the garish scarf. And flats. My feet still felt the effects of wearing pumps.

  Vi
ctoria swarmed with commuters, but most of them seemed to be heading the opposite direction. The handful of passengers in my Gatwick-bound car were silent, engrossed in their newspapers. I had bought an Independent and the Telegraph. Once we crossed the Thames, there was nothing to see, unless Clapham Junction may be considered scenic. I had plowed through the Independent and was searching for the Telegraph's report on the murder of Miss Beale when we pulled into Gatwick station. Since the Independent article was a perfunctory update I abandoned both newspapers. No news is good news.

  I took the elevator up to the airport--the train runs beneath it--and strolled to the airline ticketing section to look at the monitors that showed arrivals and departures.

  All airports are interchangeable, and Gatwick was more generic than most. Passengers with their luggage heaped on metal carts stood in long lines for each airline's security check. Large white signs with heavy black print advised passengers to keep their bags and parcels with them at all times, and to report unattended parcels at once.

  I wondered whether the signs and security checks had been posted before the Lockerbie disaster. This was my first trip abroad since my marriage. The usual x-ray routine was in place near Departures, but I didn't remember the signs, or the brisk airline personnel inspecting passports and opening bags as passengers checked in, from my earlier experiences. When I had left San Francisco International, however, the airlines had taken similar precautions with overseas passengers. Travel was getting more and more paranoid.

  No one at Gatwick seemed to object to the checking process, but the stark signs made me edgy. I verified that Jay's flight was due five minutes early and drifted through to the reception area. I had come nearly an hour before the plane would land, so I took my time inspecting the layout.

  The huge tiled room where friends and relatives awaited incoming passengers had almost no amenities except loos and a shop selling newspapers and magazines. The amplified announcements on the P.A. system echoed unpleasantly. There was no place to sit. I decided to ride the escalator up and buy a cup of coffee.

  The second floor was a zoo. Magazine concessions, the large duty-free store, and shops selling the doodads passengers forget to pack surrounded a dull lobby. Passengers waiting to board hunkered in the dull seats. Back the other way, the cafeteria was clearly too small for the volume of customers. The lines for breakfast snaked along by steam tables and liquid dispensers. There was no restaurant in the usual sense of the word.