by E. E. Knight
Lara was taken to one of the smaller rooms and questioned. She told the police everything she knew, which wasn’t much. The only real clue she had was the license number of the taxi, and she had no reason to hide it. At last she was allowed back into the larger room, where she found Borg stretched out on the couch, sound asleep under the watchful gaze of the constable. She sat at the big desk from which Gwenn, her sole full-time employee—an ambitious Welsh woman raising a three-year-old daughter while studying for an M.B.A.—ran the day-to-day operations of the Croft Trust.
After no more than ten minutes, a uniformed Special Branch man with an expression that would have won him a role in a commercial for indigestion medication came stomping into the room. He removed his checkered hat with a snap, rested it atop a clipboard, and held it in place with a thumb. He nodded at the constable, then at Lara.
“Lady Croft.”
She got to her feet. “Captain Dools.” She was surprised to see Dools. He’d been peripherally involved in the investigation of Von Croy’s murder, but his beat was international terrorism, not street crime, however bloody. “Am I under arrest?”
“Not yet. Come with me,” he added softly, motioning to the snoring form of Borg. “No need to wake Sleeping Beauty.”
Lara followed him back into the room where she’d been questioned. There was a fold-out couch, a small desk, and a full bookcase. In one corner was a midget refrigerator and, next to it, a rolling cabinet with a coffeemaker and an electric teakettle on top. Lara decided to remind Dools, gently, that he was on her turf. “Please, Captain, have a seat. Can I get you some coffee? Tea?”
“Just some answers, please, Lady Croft. What happened out there?”
Lara perched on the edge of the couch. “My dinner companion, Mr. Bjorkstrom, and I were at the door when three men accosted us. They were armed, we weren’t, but I don’t think they were expecting us to fight back. Borg—Mr. Bjorkstrom, that is—killed one of the men in self-defense. The second shot himself as I struggled with him for his gun. The third man shot at me, but he missed. I didn’t. At that point, the driver of the taxi decided to make himself scarce, which he did. I tried to question the third man, the one I wounded, but he stuck himself with that pen you have in an evidence bag.”
Dools was scribbling notes on his clipboard. “Did you recognize any of the men who attacked you?”
“No.”
He glanced up. “Perfect strangers, eh? No idea who they might be?”
“You’re the ones with the computers and fingerprint kits,” Lara said.
“Quite.” Dools consulted his clipboard. “The cab number you gave us checked out. A missing vehicle, presumed stolen. I’m sure it’s been dumped somewhere. Odd set of bodies out there. One scrawny, bowlegged, unidentified male, possibly Middle Eastern, without so much as a penny in his pocket. We’ve just sent his prints on to Interpol. One dermatologist’s nightmare with false ID but a face that matches Anatoli Egorov, who has stops for questioning on three different EU lists. Possible terrorist connections. Then there’s Eric Tisdale, the bloke who stuck himself with the poisoned pen.”
“Another terrorist?” Lara asked. “He didn’t strike me as the type. Seemed more like an accountant, to tell the truth.”
Dools flashed a grin at her. “And so he was. An accountant with a record as clean as a hospital sheet. Like I said, an odd set. Hard to imagine them sharing a bottle of sauce at a chip stand, let alone accosting Mayfair citizenry.”
“Nevertheless,” Lara said, recognizing a pregnant pause when she heard one.
“That pen of yours that stuck Tisdale—”
“Captain Dools, please. It wasn’t my pen, or Mr. Bjorkstrom’s. Save the quiz show traps for someone who is actually guilty of a crime.”
“Humor me,” Dools said evenly. “There are some strange stories associated with your name floating around the Home Office, Lady Croft. The Von Croy murder wasn’t the first time you’ve come to our attention. I hear you’ve left bodies on every continent save Antarctica.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that. Blowing snow can cover a lot of—”
“Spare me your wit.”
“If you spare me your innuendo. What does this have to do with Her Majesty’s Special Branch, Captain?”
“The streets of London are difficult enough without multiple homicides filling the papers and setting up a row.” He lowered his voice. “Privately, at least as far as Egorov goes, you’ve just saved the taxpayers arrest, trial, and incarceration expenses. Publicly, this is the second time I’ve had to clean up bodies you’ve left scattered on the London pavement. I’d like it to be the last, or I’ll find something you are guilty of and make it stick. Friends at the Home Office or no.”
Lara felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise. “If it’s a choice between a jail cell and a cemetery plot, Captain, I’ll take the cell. Now, do you have any more questions, or should I call my attorneys?”
“Yes, there is one more thing. We recovered a body from a car wreck at the base of a mountain this morning in Scotland. The victim was a retired doctor of archaeology at the University of Glasgow, name of Frys. Turns out he called your office twice this morning before the, er, accident. And here’s a funny coincidence: Our chartered accountant, Tisdale, had a receipt for a petrol purchase in Scotland yesterday tucked into his wallet, as well as a cellular phone belonging to the late Professor Frys in his jacket pocket. Odd, that. If you can shed any light on how the lines are connected in the triangle between you, Tisdale, and Frys, I’ll think better of you.”
Lara felt the room sway for just a moment as the importance of what the Special Branch man had said sank in.
A picture popped into her head, a thoughtful university publicity shot. Of course. Dr. Stephen Frys. Now she remembered him. One of Von Croy’s old cronies, part of the “Dawn Club” that met for breakfast once a year, archaeologists and anthropologists and classicists, mostly. The Dawn Club had put out a quarterly journal in the fifties and sixties, but it had died off. The surviving members still met occasionally. She’d even gone to one of their meetings as Von Croy’s guest … and been bored to distraction.
So this wasn’t an old enemy like Urdmann trying to pay off blood with blood, as she’d assumed. Frys had retired years ago, and hadn’t done any actual fieldwork for decades before that. What could Frys have wanted with her? Whatever it was, it seemed that someone had been willing to kill him over it … and to kill her, too. Yet she had no idea what it could be.
“Care to shed any light?” Dools invited again.
“No.” Lara showed him the office phone log and played back the voice mail messages. Sure enough, Dr. Frys’s calls were among them.
She put the dead man’s voice on speakerphone. Miss Croft, this is an old colleague of Dr: Von Croy’s, Dr. Frys. I must meet with you at your earliest convenience. Please call me back as soon as possible.
A moment of silence. Then: “If I knew what it was about, I’d tell you, Captain.”
“According to the records, Frys called twice. Where’s the other message?”
She skipped ahead, but there was no other message from Frys. “He must have just hung up the second time,” Lara guessed. “Look, Captain Dools, I want to find out what’s going on as much as you do. More. Someone just tried to kill me. They may try again.”
“We’ll keep an eye on the place tonight,” Dools said, passing her his card. “If you think of anything else, call me.” He turned to go. “Oh, and one more thing: Don’t leave the country without checking with me first. I’m putting a stop on your passport, just in case. And on your friend’s, too.”
Lara sighed. It might have been easier just to let herself be kidnapped.
***
“Coffee, tea?” she asked Borg after the police finally left. They’d photocopied Gwenn’s call log. It was after 3 A.M.
“Tea, please,” Borg said. The fight and the police questioning had cemented something between them: In the space of six hours, he’d gone
from stranger to ally.
Borg looked at a framed print above a small sofa, a silhouette of a woman engaged in an inverted climb up a question-mark-shaped rock, literally hanging on by her fingernails. Chinese characters drawn in cloudlike brushstrokes stood out against a polarized blue sky.
He glanced at her, waiting for the light on the electric teakettle. “This is you, correct? The ponytail?”
“Correct. It’s one of those business inspirational posters. You know, picture of a skier or something, an exhortation involving excellence below. This one only sold in East Asia. Milk or lemon?”
“Milk. What do the characters say?”
“Chinese proverb: Fall down seven times, get up eight.”
“Ajay would have liked that.”
The kettle light went out. Lara made the tea. “Do sit down.”
She carried the tray over, placed the cup before him. He fumbled with the sugar packet.
“I’ll be mother,” Lara said. In a proper English tea, whoever poured and fixed was known as “mother.” She smiled at herself. Breakfast at eight in the evening in the Seychelles, teatime at three-thirty in the morning: The only consistent thing about her life was its lack of routine. “Would you like sugar?”
“I can do it myself.”
Perhaps being watched made him nervous. She walked over to the desk, flicked on the computer. “Are you going to be in London long?”
“I have taken too much of your time. I will drive back to my hotel as soon as I have finished the tea.”
“You’re not in any state to drive, Nils,” she said. “You’re staying right here, on the sofa.”
“I do not wish to deprive you of your bed…”
“You’re not. There’s a fold-out couch in the other room. So that’s settled. Tomorrow I’ll drive out to the Harfleur House and see what I can find out about Ajay. By the way, you handled yourself well out there. Vomiting was an inspiration.”
Borg winced, and his face turned bright red. “I’m not used to having guns pointed at me. I was scared out of my senses. And the wine … I apologize.”
“Apologize nothing,” she said. “You saved our lives.”
Borg sipped his tea. “Those men. Alive one moment, and then dead. So fast. A friend of mine died once when we BASE jumped, but that was different. It was an accident, and I did not actually see it. Just his body, afterward. Now I’ve killed a man. I’ve killed someone. Will they arrest me?”
“I doubt it. If Dools was going to arrest either one of us, he would have done it already.”
“You do not seem upset, Lara,” Borg observed. “Have you killed men before?”
“I have,” she said after a moment. “But I take no pleasure in it. We both acted in self-defense, Nils. Try to remember that. They would have killed us without hesitation.”
“I know. But still, taking the life of a fellow human being, even a criminal … It is hard to bear.”
“It is,” Lara agreed. “But would you prefer that it was easy?”
“No,” said Borg. “I would not.”
“Neither would I,” said Lara. “Now, let’s see if we can get some sleep.”
4
Ajay’s family may have fallen on hard times, but Harfleur House still possessed a certain aloof grandeur. It stood behind a line of smaller, but somehow more ostentatious, houses; at some point, the Harfleurs had sold much of the lands of their estate, and only some hedges now separated the old country society from the new. The narrow windows at the front of the house, three rows of them, and the slightly higher square turrets at either end, put Lara in mind of one of Lord Nelson’s battleships. It wouldn’t have surprised her to see cannon emerge from hidden gun ports.
Lara had risen early that morning to find Borg already awake. He’d wanted to come with her to the Harfleurs, but Lara thought that would be counterproductive, given the feelings of Ajay’s father. Borg had reluctantly agreed. Then Lara had called her usual car service and arranged for transportation to Harfleur House. She owned several cars, garaged at her aunt’s old mansion and in London for her frequent trips in and out of Heathrow, but didn’t employ a full-time driver. She liked to work her own gearshift. But her shoulder was sore from the shallow wound inflicted by the Russian the night before, and she felt that she deserved a little pampering.
A crowd of reporters was gathered outside the office, waiting for her to emerge; news of last night’s dustup had obviously gotten out. While waiting for the car to show, Lara called Gwenn to prepare her for what awaited at the office. When the car arrived, a Rolls-Royce, she waded through the throng, ignoring the shouted questions and popping flashes, and jumped into the backseat. She’d told Borg to wait five or ten minutes, then leave the offices by the back door; hopefully, no one would see him. She could just imagine what the gossip columnists would make of Lara Croft and “the Borg.”
A graying gardener in a misbuttoned cardigan clipped at some tired hedges as the Rolls turned into the driveway leading to the house. Lara saw the outlines of old flower beds given over to hostas and juniper shrubs, or just replaced with grass.
The car pulled into the turnaround, and Lara stepped out. Someone had done a careful job of turning the central fountain into a fishpond. A torpid goldfish opened its mouth to her.
The window frames needed work. The wood was rotting under the paintwork, but a cheery holiday wreath hung from the imposing double front doors. Lara climbed the marble stairs with a feeling of déja vu. It had been years since she’d come here, yet in a way, it felt like just yesterday. She half expected to see her younger self come running around the corner. She took a breath and pressed the bell. Three chimes sounded from within.
Ajay’s mother opened the door, looking a lot older than the last time Lara had seen her. In fact, had she passed Lady Harfleur on the street, Lara doubted she would have recognized the woman. But Lady Harfleur, for her part, recognized Lara at once.
“Why, Lady Croft,” she sang. “What a delightful surprise! It’s been ages since we had the pleasure of seeing you.”
“Lady Harfleur,” Lara said, keeping with the formalities. “I apologize for just stopping by like this, out of the blue.”
“Nonsense, dear. Please come in. What a lovely car. Don’t have your driver trouble; it’s fine where it is. Lord Harfleur is working his way through the Times, but I know he’ll want to see you.”
“I’ve come about Ajay … Alison,” Lara began, but Lady Harfleur waved a hand airily as she led Lara through a grand hall almost devoid of furniture.
“I think it’s wonderful that you two have stayed such close friends,” Lady Harfleur chirped.
“Close … friends,” Lara repeated, not sure she’d heard correctly.
“Oh, yes. Alison writes to us regularly about all your exploits together. I must say, you certainly lead an exciting life! Well, here we are.” She knocked at a stout oak door, then pushed it open. “Dear, look who’s come to visit.”
Lord Harfleur was much as Lara remembered him: a thin-haired cross between George Sanders and Jacques Chirac. He wasn’t reading the Times. Ajay’s father was asleep at his desk in front of a portable television: Some Latin American variety show featuring girls dressed mostly in sequins and a host with mother-of-pearl teeth played silently on the screen. A thin wire ran from the TV to the earpiece that lay on his lordship’s shoulder.
“Dear!”
Lord Harfleur’s eyes popped open. Lady Harfleur reached across the desk and hit a button on the television as though she were killing a spider and making sure of it, and the TV died.
“Look who’s stopped by to say hello.”
Lord Harfleur rubbed his eyes and stood. He evinced not the slightest surprise at the unannounced guest. “Hmph. So nice to see you again, Lara. Ajay’s told us so much about your work together.”
“Yes, well…”
Lord Harfleur frowned. “Don’t know as I approve entirely. The papers have the most lurid stories about you. Still, you’ve always had the dec
ency to keep Alison out of the press.”
Lara nodded and smiled, trying to sort things out. Had Ajay invented an entire relationship with Lara and played it out for her parents? It seemed unthinkable, and yet what other explanation was there for what she was hearing? Still, she thought it best to go with the flow for now. “How is your brother, your lordship? I remember him very well from my visits all those years ago.”
“He’s puttering around in the garden somewhere.” His face broke into a smile. “Always manages to find his way home by dark.”
Lara thought of the man in the misbuttoned cardigan. Not the gardener after all, apparently…
“Tea, Lara, dear?” Lady Harfleur put in.
“No, thank you. I can’t stay long. I’ve come about Alison, actually.”
Lord Harfleur reached into his shirt pocket and extracted a pack of cigarettes with a book of matches stuck in the plastic. “Dear, I’d like a cup, even if our guest doesn’t. Why don’t you bring tea for three in here? She might change her mind.”
“Our help has to be off sometimes,” Lady Harfleur confided to Lara with a trill of laughter that sounded practiced. Then she turned back to her husband. “If you’re going to smoke, at least open a window. And put on your jacket, so you don’t take your death.”
Lady Harfleur hobbled out, and his lordship went to the window, opened it with a grunt, and lit up. He shook out his match with a smooth, thoughtless gesture, then tossed it out the window. His lordship must have been very attractive in his prime, Lara decided. Even if his family’s fortune had run out, he still had the grace of those to the manner born.
He offered the pack to Lara.
“I don’t smoke,” she said.
“Thought all you young things smoked on the sly to keep yourselves so thin.”
“I prefer to exercise,” Lara said.
Lord Harfleur grunted. Clearly, he disapproved of exercise, at least for women. “So you’ve come about Alison, eh, Croft? What’s she got herself mixed up in now?”
“I’m not quite sure, but I think she could be in some trouble.”