The Short Forever

by Stuart Woods

  “I can’t; I’m a guest of the ambassador, and it would be rude.”

  “Dinner tomorrow night?”

  “Where?”

  “The Connaught restaurant, at nine?”

  “You’re on.”

  She put her head on his shoulder, and he whirled her happily around the floor.

  Stone looked back at table twelve; the man was still not there. “If you jiggled the place cards, you must have access to tonight’s guest list,” he said to Arrington.

  “I suppose,” she replied.

  “Do you think you could get me a list of the people at table twelve, with their positions marked?”

  “I suppose so, but not tonight.”

  “Will you bring it with you tomorrow evening? It’s important.”

  “Anything for you,” she said, and let her tongue play lightly over his ear.

  Stone didn’t complain.

  37

  STONE WAS ALREADY AT AN ALCOVE table in the Connaught grill when Stanford Hedger arrived for lunch. Hedger sat down and ordered a pink gin, something Stone had never heard an American do.

  “What is a pink gin, anyway?”

  “Gin with a dash of Angostura bitters,” Hedger replied. “I doubt if you’d like it.”

  “I doubt it, too,” Stone replied, sipping his Chardonnay.

  “Did you enjoy your evening?” Hedger asked. “I saw you and Mrs. Carter dancing.”

  “Yes, thank you, and thank you, too, for the use of the ambassador’s car.”

  “Any time,” Hedger replied. “When the ambassador’s not using it, I use it myself, sometimes. Tell me, is it hard to dance with someone’s tongue in your ear?”

  “On the contrary,” Stone replied. “It helps.”

  Hedger laughed. “I never saw your little bald man, you know; are you sure he wasn’t a figment of your imagination?”

  “Isn’t his presence why you had me invited?”

  “Well, yes; but I fully expected to see him, if you did.”

  “Why did you think he’d be there?”

  “Just a hunch. Last night’s dinner, if you didn’t know, was for the foreign diplomatic corps. I reckoned if he was anybody important in an embassy, he’d be there.”

  “Good guess,” Stone replied. “And why did you think he’d be somebody important in an embassy?”

  “His accents, as you described them, one overlaid on the other. Eton is a very exclusive school, you know, and everybody who spends his youth there comes out with that accent, even the foreigners. Remember Abba Eban, the Israeli ambassador to the UN?”

  “Yes.”

  “Same accent.”

  “Now that you mention it.”

  Hedger looked at the menu. “I’ll have half a dozen oysters and the Dover sole,” he said to the waiter, “off the bone, and I’d prefer a female, if there’s one available.”

  “I’ll have the cold soup and the sole,” Stone said. “Should I order the female, too?”

  “If you enjoy roe,” Hedger replied.

  Stone nodded to the waiter.

  “And bring us a bottle of that lovely Sancerre,” Hedger said. He turned to Stone. “Now, what’s up? Why did you want to see me?”

  “Things have taken a rather ominous turn,” Stone said, “and I thought you might have some advice on how I should proceed.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I followed Lance Cabot yesterday from his house to an antiques market in Chelsea. Do you know his friends Ali and Sheila?”

  “Oh, yes; he met them when we were in Cairo. I believe they were complicit in the bombing of my safe house there.”

  “Turns out they had a shop in the market. Also turns out that I wasn’t the only one following Lance; so were the two men who abducted me and took me to the interrogation. They were in the same Daimler limousine.”

  “Did you make a note of the number plate?”

  “No,” Stone replied, a little embarrassed that he had not thought of that.

  “Next time you get the chance,” Hedger said. “It would help.”

  “Certainly. Anyway, the two men followed Lance into the building. I went inside and found Ali and Sheila’s shop, phoned Lance there, and told them to get out. I got them into a cab, and as we drove around the building, a bomb destroyed the shop.”

  Hedger’s considerable eyebrows went up. “Sounds like these people are getting serious.”

  “They’re not the only ones,” Stone said. “Lance called Erica and told her to get out of the house; then they went to the home of a friend, and I had a look around Lance’s house; got the keys from Monica, Erica’s sister.”

  “Oh, good,” Hedger said, obviously pleased. “I assumed you searched it thoroughly.”

  “I did. There was absolutely nothing that revealed anything about Lance or whatever business he’s conducting.”

  “I’m not really surprised,” Hedger said. “Lance is too smart to leave sensitive materials lying around.”

  “Then I had a look in the wine cellar, where I found a small office, concealed behind a couple of wine racks.” He gave Hedger a description of how he got in. “There was a desk, a computer, and filing cabinets, all secured. As I was trying to get into the computer, I heard someone entering the house; more than one person. I shut myself up in the office and waited for them to leave. After a few minutes, two men came into the wine cellar; a moment later, another person came in and shot them both.” He had Hedger’s undivided attention now.

  Their first courses arrived, and Stone waited for the waiter to depart before continuing. “When I got out of the office, they were both dead—two small-caliber shots to the head, in both cases.”

  “I hope to God you didn’t call the police.”

  “No, I got the hell out of there, after removing any fingerprints I might have left on various surfaces.”

  “Good,” Hedger said, relieved.

  “The two men were my former abductors.”

  Hedger looked surprised. “Oh, really?”

  “They were carrying Greek passports.”

  “Greek?” Hedger grunted. “Probably false.”

  “They looked good to me.”

  “Would you recognize a false passport?”

  “I’ve seen a few, but to answer your question, probably not a good one.”

  “Well, let’s sum up,” Hedger said.

  “Not yet, there’s more.”

  “More?”

  “I went to find Lance and Erica; we had a drink, and then we returned to the Farm Street house. Erica cooked, and Lance asked me to go to the cellar and bring up some wine. I did, and the bodies were gone, everything cleaned up.”

  Hedger looked really interested. “How long were you out of the house?”

  “An hour and a half, maybe two hours.”

  “Long enough for Lance to visit the house, clean up, and return to the other house?”

  “If he hurried, and if he was very efficient. He was on the phone when I arrived at the other house, but I’ve no idea how long he had been there.”

  “Could Lance have had any idea you’d been to the Farm Street house?”

  “Possibly, since I got the keys from Monica. Maybe she told him.”

  “So he sent you down to the cellar so you could see for yourself that everything had been cleaned up.”

  “Perhaps. I’ll have to find out if Monica told him I had the keys.”

  “Do that. Now, as I said, to sum up, what does this tell us about Lance?”

  “You tell me.”

  “It tells us that Lance is a part of something bigger than himself.”

  “How does it tell us that?”

  “You obviously didn’t read the papers this morning.”

  “Not thoroughly.”

  “Your two ‘Greeks’ were found in Hyde Park, in the trunk of a stolen car. The police are quite excited about it.”

  “Oh.”

  “I very much doubt if Lance had time to steal a car, load the bodies into it, and clean
up the wine cellar, all on his own.”

  “You have a point. But what if it wasn’t Lance?”

  “Who else might it be?”

  “The bald man?”

  “They were his men; why would he shoot them in Lance’s wine cellar, then clean up after himself? I could understand that he might wish to pin the murders on Lance, but in that case, he’d have left them where they lay, for somebody to find, wouldn’t he?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “The parties we know are involved in this are Lance, the bald man and his two companions, and the two ‘Greeks,’ and they’re dead. If there’s another party, I don’t know about it, and neither do you.”

  “Lance would,” Stone said. “If he knows anything. It’s possible that another party murdered the two men, and Lance knows nothing about it.”

  “If you were the investigating officer, and you are, in a way, would you believe that?”

  “It wouldn’t be my first theory,” Stone admitted.

  “Now, back to the bald gentleman. I think he’s a diplomat; how do we find out who he is?”

  “Tonight, I’ll have a list of the people at table twelve,” Stone said. “We can begin there.”

  “Very good,” Hedger said. The waiter arrived with their sole, and they tucked into it.

  Stone liked the roe.

  38

  LATER THAT EVENING, MR. CHEVALIER, the maître d’ in the Connaught restaurant, took note that Stone had arrived, for the second time that week, with a beautiful woman. He must have had a sense of humor, because he seated them at the same corner table that Stone had shared with Sarah.

  Sarah had called that afternoon. “Why don’t I cook you some dinner at my flat this evening?”

  “I’m afraid I already have plans,” Stone said.

  “Anyone I know?”

  Strictly speaking, no, though she knew about Arrington. “No.”

  “I’m not sure I like this.”

  “It’s business,” Stone said, falling back on the most convenient lie. He didn’t like lying, but he was cornered.

  “Oh.”

  “How’s it going with James’s estate?” he asked, wanting to remind her that she should, strictly speaking, be in mourning.

  “Splendidly,” she said. “Julian Wainwright has had a word with the conglomerate, and it looks as though they’re still interested in buying the business.”

  “That’s good news.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  There was an awkward silence.

  “Will I see you this week?”

  “Of course. Oh, by the way, do you know if Monica spoke to Lance the other night, after she gave me the keys to the Farm Street house?”

  “I don’t think so; we had dinner together, and I dropped her off at her place later. She didn’t call anyone while we were together. Why?”

  “I decided not to go to Lance’s house, since it really isn’t any of my business, and I didn’t want Lance to think I had been there.”

  “I’m seeing Monica later today; I could mention that to her, if you like.”

  “I’d appreciate that. I put the keys through her mail slot not long after she gave them to me.”

  “All right, then, I’ll see you later, I hope.”

  “Of course,” Stone replied, and hung up feeling guilty.

  Seated at the corner table, with Arrington beside him, in the warm glow of the Connaught restaurant, Stone no longer felt guilty. The difficult past he and Arrington shared had receded; all he could think about was here and now.

  “It’s so good to see you,” Arrington said.

  “And you.”

  “When I saw you in Palm Beach, you said you’d call me the next day. Why didn’t you?”

  He had called her in the morning and a man had answered, so he had hung up. “You’ll recall the circumstances of the evening,” Stone said. “I had to make a stop at the local hospital, and they got me out of there early the next morning on Thad Shames’s jet.” It had been from the jet that he had called her. “By the time I got to New York and the drugs had worn off, you had left Palm Beach.” He was guessing that she had left.

  “Yes, I left the next day,” she said. “Oh, by the way, here’s that list you asked for.” She pulled a sheet of paper from her purse.

  Stone looked at the list: the Swedish ambassador and his wife; the Belgian chargé d’affaires and wife; the Israeli cultural attaché and wife; the German military attaché and wife; the Australian head of chancery and wife. “There’s no seating plan,” he said.

  “Sorry, I couldn’t get that; some secretary had apparently shredded it, or something.”

  It was a start, Stone thought; he’d have to go over this with Hedger.

  “Why did you want the list?”

  “There was a man at the table I recognized, but I couldn’t place him.”

  “You know a lot of diplomats, do you?”

  “No, he just looked very familiar. It’ll come to me.”

  “You’re not losing brain cells, are you?”

  He laughed. “Yes, but no more than usual.”

  They had a drink and ordered dinner. Stone didn’t really care what he ate; he was happy just to be with her, with no strain, no conflict. Every time they had met during the past couple of years there had always been some problem that made the situation difficult.

  “It’s so nice to be back in London,” Arrington said. “And I’ve always loved this room. Vance and I stayed here when we were in town, and we always had dinner here at least once.”

  That didn’t improve the atmosphere much for Stone, but he let it pass.

  “You’re looking very beautiful tonight,” he said, trying to get things back on track.

  “You look pretty good yourself,” she said.

  Mr. Chevalier suddenly appeared at the table and handed Stone a small envelope. “A message for you, Mr. Barrington,” he said.

  “Thank you,” Stone replied. “Sorry about this,” he said to Arrington. He opened the envelope. On a sheet of the hotel’s stationery was written, I am in the hotel lounge; I must see you at once. It was signed by Detective Inspector Evelyn Throckmorton.

  “Oh, shit,” Stone muttered.

  “What is it?”

  “There’s someone here I have to see for a moment. Please excuse me.”

  “Not a woman, I hope,” Arrington said.

  “Fear not.” He left the table and started toward the lounge. As he reached the central hallway, Monica appeared through the front doors.

  “Hello, there,” she said, taking him by the shoulders and giving him a kiss on the lips.

  Stone could see Throckmorton waiting impatiently in the lounge across the hallway. “Hello; I dropped Lance’s keys through your mail slot; did you get them?”

  “Yes. Did you check out his house?”

  “No, I decided it was none of my business, so I dropped off the keys. Why are you at the Connaught?”

  “I’m having dinner with some friends in the grill; I’d better run.” She repeated the warm kiss, then disappeared down the hall into the grill.

  Stone walked into the lounge, wiping lipstick from his lips. Throckmorton and two men who were obviously detectives were waiting for him, seated in large chairs, still wearing their raincoats. The detective inspector looked grim. A raincoat was draped across his lap. “Sit down,” he said. “I’m going to ask you some questions, and I want truthful answers,” he said.

  Stone sat down.

  “Early this morning,” Throckmorton began, “a police constable in Hyde Park found a stolen car abandoned there.”

  Stone tried to remain calm.

  “In the boot were the bodies of two men who had been murdered, shot in the head with a handgun, obviously a professional job of work.”

  “I believe I saw something about that in the papers,” Stone replied.

  “They were of Mediterranean extraction, carrying Greek passports. Do you know anyone of that description?”

  “No,�
� Stone lied.

  “Think carefully, Mr. Barrington; you don’t want to make any mistakes.”

  “I do not think I am acquainted with them.”

  Throckmorton took the raincoat from his lap and held it out to Stone. “Then why was one of them wearing your raincoat?” He opened the coat and turned out an inside pocket. A label bore the name of Doug Hayward’s shop and neatly printed inside, Stone’s own name.

  Stone was stunned; he struggled to remain calm. “I don’t understand,” Stone said. “My raincoat is upstairs.”

  “Let’s go and see it,” Throckmorton said, standing up.

  Stone went to the concierge’s desk, asked for his key, and led the way to the elevator. The four men filled it completely. Stone’s mind was racing. When the two men had entered Lance’s house, they must have hung their raincoats on the rack with Stone’s: When he had left the house, he must have taken the wrong coat. Oh, shit, shit, shit! How was he going to explain this? And if he told Throckmorton everything, how would he explain not having told him earlier about the two corpses in the wine cellar?

  The elevator stopped on Stone’s floor, and he led them to his suite. He went to a closet, found the raincoat, and handed it to Throckmorton.

  The two detectives peered over his shoulder at the two coats, comparing them. “They’re nearly identical,” one of them said, helpfully. “The linings look the same, too.”

  “Mmm, yes,” Throckmorton agreed. He turned to Stone. “That doesn’t explain how the two coats got exchanged,” he said.

  “I have absolutely no idea,” Stone replied. “Perhaps in a checkroom somewhere?”

  “Where? Where have you checked this coat?”

  “Everywhere I’ve been,” Stone replied. “Downstairs in the cloak room, in restaurants; I’ve also hung it on racks in pubs, set it down in shops.”

  “But where could you have taken this dead man’s coat?”

  “I don’t know, it seems likely that he took mine and left his, doesn’t it?”

  Throckmorton turned to the two detectives. “Wait downstairs,” he said. The two men left the room. “Sit down,” he said to Stone. Both men took chairs.

  “Evelyn . . .”

  “It is only because of Lieutenant Bacchetti’s recommendation of you that we are not having this conversation in an interrogation room, and that the interrogation is not being conducted by the two men who just left, who would be doing the job far less gently than I.”