The Magdalene Cipher

by Jim Hougan

  Clementine looked him in the eyes. “You promise?”

  “Scout’s honor.”

  Reluctantly, Clem slipped out the front door to the porch. As the door closed behind her, Dunphy took a step toward Curry, and then another. Suddenly, they were toe to toe, the Walther in Dunphy’s hand, his arm hanging down by his side.

  Curry’s back was pressed against the wall, and Dunphy saw that his shirt collar was soaked with blood from where he’d been smacked with the gun. “This is a joke,” Curry said. “Right?”

  Dunphy shook his head.

  “We go back a ways,” Curry pleaded. “A long ways.”

  A soft, derisive puff fell from Dunphy’s lips.

  “I know what you’re lookin’ for,” Curry insisted. “I could tell you stuff you want to know.”

  “Yeah, but you’d lie,” Dunphy replied. “And, anyway, there’s gonna be a lotta cops here, so—well, it’s just not a good time.”

  “But—” Curry’s eyes grew round as the muzzle of the Walther pressed against his kneecap.

  “Hang on,” Dunphy said, “this is only gonna take a second.”

  “For God’s sake, Jack—”

  “Stop whining—it’s not gonna kill ya.” And he fired.

  Chapter 19

  They ran hand in hand along the Old Brompton Road, looking over their shoulders, desperate for a taxi. Police cars careened down the street at ferocious speeds, klaxons shrieking. Finally, they found a cab in front of a Pakistani shop that seemed to specialize in plastic luggage.

  “Victoria Station,” Dunphy said, and yanked the door open. A second later, the two of them fell into the cab’s cracked leather seats, lay back, and listened to their hearts slam against their chests. Hot air rattled from a heater on the back of the driver’s seat, toasting their ankles.

  It was a full minute before Clem looked at him. “Where are we going?” she asked, her voice dull with shock.

  Dunphy shook his head. A little nod in the direction of the driver.

  “I don’t have my passport,” Clem said.

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  Lost to the world in the thickening rush hour, they rode in silence, with Dunphy doing his best to ignore the tears on his girlfriend’s cheeks. After a while, he couldn’t take it any longer. “Look,” he said, “I didn’t have any choice.”

  She kept her eyes on the street beyond the window.

  “And, anyway,” he went on, “it’s not like—” The driver’s eyes loomed in the rearview mirror. Dunphy lowered his voice to a whisper. “It’s not like he’s gonna croak, for Christ’s sake. He’s a tough guy.”

  Clem turned to him in disbelief, then looked away.

  Dunphy grinned. “A little spackle, a cane—he’ll be fine.”

  She burst into tears.

  Dunphy rolled his eyes. “It’s the truth. Not that I give a shit, but the son of a bitch’ll be hunky-dory in no time.”

  Clementine looked at him as if he were insane. “And the other man? What about him? Will he be fine, too?”

  “A little dental work—he’ll be right as rain, doing what he does best.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Hurting people.”

  Nothing else was said between them until they arrived at the train station. Dunphy gave the driver ten quid, and with Clementine in tow, led her through the crowds to the building’s far side, where he hailed a second cab to a second train station—this time, King’s Cross. The traffic was even thicker than before, the ride slower, and the conversation nonexistent.

  Which was fine with Dunphy, who had a lot of thinking to do—not to mention the explaining that would come later. But first, he had to get cash—and lots of it. Which meant a visit to Jersey.

  He looked out the window. The cab was crawling along Victoria Street past New Scotland Yard, heading toward Westminster Abbey and Whitehall. Rivers of businessmen, shop girls, cops, pols, and tourists thronged the sidewalks, moving at a surprising clip.

  The thing is, Dunphy thought, there’s no way Blémont hasn’t been in touch with the bank. He would have called them months ago. He’d have explained about the money, about how it was actually his, and—then what? Then, nothing. A hapless shrug from the banker—what’s-his-name?—old man Picard. Who’d have expressed his regrets and shown Blémont to the door. “Sorry, old man, nothing to be done, I’m afraid. We’ll just have to pray your chap turns up!”

  And that’s exactly what Blémont would do—wait for Thornley to show up. He’d have searched everywhere, of course, but he’d have known there was one place that Thornley was certain to come: the Banque Privat de St. Helier on Jersey. Because that’s where the money was, and that’s what this was all about, right?

  The cab went around a little square whose name Dunphy didn’t catch, and swung left, heading up Whitehall past the Admiralty and Old War Office. Clem made a sniffling sound, but shrank away when Dunphy tried to comfort her.

  Ah, well, he thought. One thing at a time.

  Jersey . . . Blémont . . . the Frenchman wouldn’t have sat around for months, watching the bank. He’d have paid someone to tell him if and when Kerry Thornley showed up. But who would that someone have been? Someone who worked in the bank. Which meant old man Picard, a secretary, or clerk. But probably not Picard himself: discretion was his business.

  The taxi swung past Charing Cross, heading up the Strand in the direction of the Inner Temple. For a fleeting moment, Dunphy was tempted to have the cab stop, so that he could check out the site where everything had started. The place where Schidlof—or at least the middle part of Schidlof—had been dropped. But the cab turned before it got to the temple, moving north on Kingsway in the direction of Bloomsbury and the British Museum.

  If it was a clerk who’d been bribed, Dunphy thought, he’d have been given the name of someone else to call—someone on the island. Whoever that was would notify Blémont of Thornley’s whereabouts and follow him wherever he went. Eventually, Blémont himself would show up, and that’s when things would get ugly.

  But what if it was Picard? What if Blémont had actually gotten to the old man himself? What then?

  Dunphy thought about it. Well, then, he thought, in that case, he’d try to keep me there. Perhaps until Blémont himself could arrive. Dunphy grunted softly, as if he were on a bicycle and was suddenly pedaling uphill.

  “What?”

  He turned to her. “I was just thinking,” he said. “When we get to King’s Cross, I have to make a phone call.” She looked away. They were passing a row of chic furniture stores on Tottenham Court Road.

  If Picard tried to stall him, he’d probably make up an excuse about not having enough cash on hand to close out the account. And, in fact, that wouldn’t be such a stretch: the Banque Privat was, as its name implied, a private bank and not a commercial one. It did not have tellers or ATMs, and it did not cash checks for workmen. Even more to the point, it was a lot of cash that Dunphy was seeking: nearly three hundred thousand pounds—about half a million dollars—the entire take from Blémont’s scam with the stolen IBM stock. The idea, then, was to make sure that the money (and not Blémont) would be waiting for him when he got to the bank.

  When the cab pulled into the turnaround at King’s Cross, Dunphy gave Clem a fistful of cash and told her to buy two tickets to Southend-on-Sea.

  “Where will you be?” she asked suspiciously.

  “Right there,” Dunphy said, gesturing. “On the phone.”

  It took a while to get the number for the Banque Privat, but when he did, the call went straight through.

  The woman who answered was crisply efficient. She said that Mr. Picard was in a meeting and would not be available until the afternoon. Perhaps she could be of help?

  “Well, ah certainly hope so,” Dunphy said, affecting a southern accent. “This is Taylor Brooks—from Crozet, Vuhginya?”

  “Yes?”

  “And how’re yew, ma’am?”

  “I’m very well, thank
you.”

  “Ah sure am glad to hear that, on accounta ah’ll be stoppin’ by tomorrah—fo’ a visit? The man I work for said I should call ahead, give y’all a little notice.”

  “I see. And who might that be?”

  Dunphy chuckled. “Well, ma’am, that’s not something we discuss much on the telephone—bein’ as how he’s real discreet. But we do have several accounts with yew. Ah believe they were set up by a Mr. Thawnly.”

  Silence.

  “Well, I haven’t seen hide nor hair of that jokah for quite some time, but—what it is—ah’ll be making a withdrawal. And the Big Fellah—that’s my boss—thought I should call aheada time—on account of the amount involved.”

  “Well, that was very thoughtful of him.”

  “Thank you, ma’am, ah’ll tell him you said that. Truth is, we’re about as busy as a dawg with two dicks—”

  “Pardon me?”

  “I said we’re about as busy as a dawg with two dicks. Which is a saying we have—means we’re real busy. Anyway, like y’all said, ah’m gonna need three hundred thousand pounds—”

  “Oh, dear . . .”

  “—and I’d appreciate it if you’d have it on hand when ah get there. Hunnuds, if you got ’em. Fifties, if you don’t.”

  “Yes, well . . . you said you’re a Mr. . . . Taylor?”

  “No, ma’am. Ah said ah’m a Mr. Brooks. Taylor’s my fus’ name.”

  “Excuse me.”

  “No need to apologize, ma’am. Happens all the time.”

  “And the account—”

  “Well, now, that’s not something we should go into just now, but if you’ll tell Mr. Picard that I called, and that these are his Crozet, Vuhginia, accounts, he’ll know exactly where ah’m comin’ from.”

  “I see.”

  “Well, praise Jesus! That’s all I had to say. Just a little heads-up. Ah’ll look fo’wut, then, to seein’ ya—fust thing.”

  And with that, Dunphy rang off.

  “Who was that a?” Clem asked, startling him as he turned away from the phone.

  “My bank,” he said, taking one of the tickets from her hand. “Jesus, Clem, I swear I’m gonna get you a bell.”

  “I don’t mean that a—I mean who were you supposed to be? You sounded like that old television show. Dukes of Hazzard! a”

  “Thanks,” Dunphy said dryly. “I do the best I can. So where’s the train?”

  “Track seventeen. We’ve got about four minutes.” She was looking at him strangely, as if she’d just begun to realize that Dunphy was a lot more than she’d bargained for.

  They walked double-time through the crowded station, hurrying without ever quite running. At Track 17, they broke into a jog on the platform, making their way toward the front of the train, where the last of the first-class cars was waiting. With the exception of an impeccably dressed elderly couple wrestling with shopping bags, and a young man talking boisterously into a cell phone, they were alone.

  Dunphy dropped into a seat near the back of the car and closed his eyes. He was thinking about the Banque Privat. The secretary, or whoever she was, would tell old man Picard about the phone call she’d just had. Picard would recognize the reference to Crozet immediately.

  These were accounts that Dunphy had set up for the Reverend James MacLeod, a burly evangelist with a radio and television ministry that netted his Second Baptist Primitive Church about fifty thousand dollars a week in cash and checks, sent through the mail by enraptured admirers. The checks, and about 10 percent of the cash, were properly declared and publicly accounted for. The remaining 90 percent of the cash was smuggled abroad into MacLeod’s accounts at the Banque Privat.

  Dunphy had no intention (or, indeed, any way) of touching that money. He was no longer a signatory to any of the accounts, and his reference to them was simply a way of making sure that Picard had the necessary cash on hand—without tipping him to Merry Kerry’s arrival.

  The train lurched. He opened his eyes. “You okay?” he asked.

  Clem shook her head. “No, I’m not okay. I don’t know what’s happening—or who you really are—or what any of this is all about. And it’s not fair. Because I’m the one who’s probably going to get killed.”

  Dunphy shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “No, you’re not,” he said. “But . . . it’s kind of complicated.”

  She made a low, growling sound and looked away.

  “All right! I’m sorry. It’s just . . .” He lowered his voice. “Just don’t go off the deep end on me.” He thought about it for a moment and then plunged in. “Remember, the other day? I mentioned a thing called need to know. And I said you didn’t have it, but—it turns out—you did. I was thinking, the less you knew, the safer you’d be, but—” He paused, then added, “My bad,” and paused again, uncertain how this would play. Finally, he plunged on. “So the point is, I fucked up. There’s no way to get around that, and now—well, now, we’re in a lot of trouble. Both of us.” He sighed. “Got a cigarette?”

  Clem blinked. “You don’t smoke.”

  “I was thinking of taking it up again. I mean, why not?” When she didn’t laugh, he hurried on. “Anyway, it’s like this. When I told you I’d left the Agency, when I said that I was—”

  “Redundant.”

  “Right—when I said that I was redundant—well, that was kind of an understatement.”

  A quizzical look from this beautiful girl. “What does that mean?”

  “Well, it means that, while it’s true that I don’t work for the Agency anymore, there’s more to it.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like what you saw. They’re looking for me. And they’re pissed.”

  “Who is?”

  “The people I used to work for. And, you see, what happened was . . . they were tracking my credit cards, trying to see where I’ve gone. Which, of course, I knew they’d do, so, naturally, I didn’t use them. Only then, when you went out to buy the coat—I kind of forgot about it. Because I was listening to Simon, and—”

  She shook her head impatiently. “What did you do a?” she asked, enunciating each word as if he were deaf and had to read lips. “What did you do to them that made them so angry at you a?”

  Dunphy waved the question away. “What’s that got to do with anything? The point is—”

  “You didn’t embezzle funds?!” she asked, more thrilled than scared. “You aren’t an embezzler a?!”

  Her excitement made him smile. “It wasn’t money,” he said. “It was more like . . . information. Like I was embezzling information.” Clem frowned, not understanding. “I got curious, a” Dunphy went on. “About Schidlof. And now . . .” He couldn’t bring himself to finish the sentence. It sounded so melodramatic.

  But Clem wouldn’t let it go. “Now, what a?” she asked.

  The train lurched a second time and began to move.

  “Well,” he went on, “now they want to kill me. I mean, any idiot could see that. a”

  She fell silent for a long while, and then, “How did they find us?”

  “Like I said, they traced the charge. I kept one of my cards to get cash from an ATM, and then I forgot to throw it away. Then I gave you the wallet in Camden Lock, and you used the card to buy a coat. And when you did that, the credit-card people got on the phone to Langley. And they told them there was activity in one of the accounts they’d been told to watch.”

  She shook her head. “They wouldn’t do that,” she said firmly.

  “Who wouldn’t?”

  “Visa. American Express.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s an invasion of privacy!”

  Dunphy stared at her. Finally he said, “You’re right. Cynical me. God knows what I was thinking.”

  “And, anyway—who’s Langley?”

  “It’s a place—not a person. Outside Washington. And if you can suspend your sense of disbelief, just for a minute, I’ll finish telling you what happened. When the credit-card people called Langley,
Langley called the embassy in London—”

  “But how do you know all this? You’re just making it up!”

  “I’m not making it up. It’s the way things are done.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I’ve done it!”

  “Killed people?” She was aghast.

  Dunphy shook his head. “No! Located a them.”

  “But why would you do that?”

  “I don’t know. There are lots of reasons! What’s the difference? The point is, maybe ten minutes after they called the embassy, a couple of guys—”

  “What guys?”

  “The ones back there. They got in their car—”

  “The Jaguar.”

  “Right. They got into the Ja ag-yew-are and drove it to Camden Lock. Where they looked for the shop. And when they found it, they went through the day’s receipts until they found a sixty-quid Amex transaction. And when they found the transaction, they asked the guy who ran the shop if he could remember the sale.” Dunphy paused. “Which he apparently did. Not that I’m surprised. You’re kind of memorable.”

  Clementine looked glum. “That was Jeffrey. He’s a friend of Simon’s.”

  “So he’s someone you know.”

  She shrugged. “Just to say hello. We shared a taxi once. And he told me he had these coats.” She fell silent for a moment, and then turned back to him. “Why are they after you? You must have done something to them.”

  Dunphy made a gesture with his hands. “Not really. I mean, I asked a lot of questions, and . . . obviously, they were the wrong questions, or maybe they were the right questions, but . . . I don’t know what to tell you. It’s not entirely clear.”

  “Someone’s trying to kill you, and you don’t know why?”

  Her sarcasm angered him. “Well, I’m trying to find out, aren’t I? I mean . . . it’s not as if I haven’t thought about it! You can understand my curiosity. a”

  She flinched at the hard edge in his voice. Finally, and in a dull voice, she asked, “Where are we going?”

  Dunphy gazed out the window at the wintry landscape. “I don’t know,” he said, “but—this train?—it’s beginning to look a lot like a handbasket.”