by John Gardner
Walid tried to reply, but she shushed him. “Listen to me, my prince. I would like you to forget all the indignities of the past weeks—when I have been with Samih in the same room as yourself. You can never know how base, coarse and inferior that made me feel. On that last night I longed to be with you, and knew that you rejected me because of Samih. Now, I ask your forgiveness.”
“There is nothing to forgive, Khami. Not a thing. Like me, you were under discipline. We are still under discipline …”
“Yes, but tonight should have nothing to do with the discipline of Intiqam. I want this to be for us, for both of us.” The robe slipped from her shoulders and Walid saw that she was dressed in the most sexy underclothing of pure silk, trimmed with a fine and delicate lace. “Fit for a bride?” she asked.
“Indeed, fit for a bride on her bridal night. Come.”
“No.” She shook her head. “I shall make love to you, Walid. Tell me if you like what I do.”
She then stretched her body over his, the tips of their tongues met between their conjoined lips, and she teemed kisses all over his body as a prelude to what was to be the greatest night of lovemaking Walid had ever experienced.
Now, in the small hours of the morning, she lay in his arms and they spoke of the love they bore one for the other.
Presently she asked him about the killing of the other members of the Intiqam team. “Did you intend to do that, to end all this, from the beginning?”
He lay silent for long seconds. “I always knew I was capable of doing it, and I suppose I knew that, if there were no other way, I would not shrink from it.”
“Then you think the Intiqam is wrong? That revenge is not the way?”
“I did not say that, Khami. But I am not happy about what I have done. Nor am I happy about the things we may be called to do.”
“But you will still do them?”
“We have pledged. What we are ordered to do must be done.”
“Of course. I would expect no more and no less.”
They made love again and she felt as though her heart would burst as Walid entered her. She cried out both when he came inside her and when she reached the peak of her satisfaction.
They lay in the dark, very close, feeling content as the sweat from their bodies mingled. After a while she asked if she could go shopping again. “In the morning?” she asked.
“Of course, my Khami. If you return as ready for love as you did last time.”
“I shall be better than ever.” Her hand strayed to him and he began to become aroused for the fourth time in that one night.
The courier arrived with the telephone logs just as they were finishing breakfast. Bitsy Williams had been even more difficult than usual this morning. She had cooked an elaborate meal, placing various things in silver dishes on warming plates set on the sideboard: bacon, kedgeree, eggs—both fried and poached—sausages, and toast in little silver racks. Obviously she had been digging around in Carole’s and Gus’s cupboards.
“Bit too uppity for me, Bits,” Herbie had said.
“It’s how we used to be served breakfast when I was a girl,” she volleyed back.
“Looks like something out of that movie Remains of the Day.” Herbie gave her an innocent smile. “You see that movie, Bex?”
“Wonderful,” said DCI Olesker. “But everything Anthony Hopkins does is wonderful.”
“I specially liked the scene where he had the words with Emma Thompson about not calling his father by his first name.”
“You’re right, Herb. This is like dining in a grand house in the twenties or thirties.”
“As Bits says, like when she was a girl.”
Bitsy Williams stamped out of the room with a stifled little mewing sound.
“Bit cruel, Herb.”
“Needs to be moved down a peg or two.” He paused. “You really gay, Bex?”
She gave him an odd little look. “Me? Gay? What gave you that idea?”
“You. You had to go call your girlfriend first night you were here.”
She gave a tinkling little laugh and pushed the hair off her forehead. “Mmmm. Yes, I did, didn’t I?”
“You soitenly did, Rebecca, you soitenly did.” Herbie’s imitation of Laurel and Hardy was reasonably good considering his German background.
“I always do that when I think a man’s going to become … well … dangerous.”
“I am an old man, Bex. An old man in a dry month. A hollow man. A stuffed man. Never could I be dangerous. I have forsworn wenches.”
“Have you now?”
At that moment the doorbell rang. The courier arrived and Herbie tore open the envelope and began to go through the lists of calls covering the period just before and after Gus’s death.
“Is interesting here.” He pointed. “And here also.”
Bex Olesker, leaning on his shoulder so that her cheek was dangerously close to his, pointed with a long finger. “Not to mention here.” She stabbed at the printout.
“Let’s go and get her. No good and bad cops, okay? Just both bad cops.”
“Very bad cops.” Rebecca Olesker touched his cheek with hers as she straightened up.
As they were opening the front door, the telephone purred in Gus’s study and Herb hurried to answer it.
“Got some news,” Tony Worboys said.
“Good, bad or indifferent?”
“Don’t know really. The terrorist they caught in Rome. Guy by the name of Ramsi al-Disi.”
“What’s in a name?”
“The Italians are turning him over to us.”
“You mean us as in SIS, or us as in Brits in general?”
“Both. They’re flying him back today. Private jet. All hush-hush. We’ve agreed that you and DCI Olesker, plus Martin Brook, can clean him out.”
“Very nice of you, I’m sure. Talk later, then, Young Worboys. We’re off to clean Carole out.”
“Just thought you should know. It’s all under wraps. No press release. Nothing.”
“Until my baby comes homes,” Herb crooned.
“What the hell …?”
“Old nice song. Vintage, Tony. Before your time. No love, no nothing, until my baby comes home.”
“Ah.” You could almost hear him shaking his head.
19
CAROLE WAS WAITING FOR them in the Guest Quarters. She looked rested, wore a crisp blue dress, the color of the Mediterranean on a good day, and her hair was pulled back, almost flat, tied into a severe bun at the nape of her neck. For a second Herbie was reminded of a woman in prison garb; the plain dress and the hair short, as prisoners are made to wear it.
“Any news, Herb?” Though she asked a question, she did not look at him, as if she already knew the answer.
“No news is good news, right?” Herb pitched his voice flat and tranquil. Carole looked up sharply. She knew the tone, had used it herself before this, and had learned it from her loving husband. “Let them know if it’s going to be tough,” Gus used to say. “Let them know about it straight off. Keep the voice level; never sound pleased to see them; never give ground. Remain neutral all the time.” She looked at Bex and said, “Good morning.” A shade stiffly.
“And to you, Mrs. Keene.”
Oh, Christ, Carole thought. No good cops here today. She wondered what it meant.
“We have to ask you some hard questions, Carole,” Herb began.
“Very difficult,” Bex added.
“Has something happened? Something new?”
“Nothing really new, Mrs. Keene.” Bex sat in a chair at right angles to Carole, while Herb took a seat directly opposite her so that he could see her eyes and hands. Always watch the hands and eyes, they taught interrogators. Carole already knew all there was to know about inquisitions, so it would not be easy for Herb and Bex if she had something to hide.
“Is like this, Carole,” Herbie began. “Got to ask you about certain telephone calls.”
He thought he caught a very slight movement in her eyes
, so tiny that it was difficult to tell. “First, on the night Gus was killed, you took a call from a public phone box at just before two-thirty in the morning.” He looked down quickly at the telephone log attached to a clipboard, his pen poised, like a schoolmaster ready to tick things from a list.
“Two-thirty in the morning? Yes. Gus called me to say he was on his way back. He was later than he had expected to be.”
“Two-thirty in the morning?” Bex queried.
“Yes, it was around half-past two. I had been slightly worried.”
“Did he say where he’d been?” Herbie again.
“You know where he had been. At a meeting of the Old Sarum Sorcerers. I told you …”
“He left the meeting at one in the morning, Carole. Did he say where he had been after he left?”
“Not that I can recall. He could quite easily have gone for a drink with one of the bloody Sorcerers.” She was cool, but the use of the word “bloody” signified a disquiet in the back of her mind, even though her voice did not rise or take a different tone.
“The Sorcerer you put us on to said he left alone. They had a good evening, he said. Even apologized to Gus for keeping him so late.” This from Bex. “I spoke to him. Gus said he was going straight home.”
“You see, Carole, we have a little time problem. Gus left at one in the morning. Then he calls you at two-thirty. Hour and a half not accounted for.”
“Perhaps he had some bird stashed away in Salisbury.” She smiled, signifying this was a joke.
Herb made it clear it was no joke to him. “He have birds stashed away, Carole? Gus, was he a ladies’ man outside your happy marriage?”
“Don’t be bloody silly, Herb. Gus was honest as the day is long.”
“Days can sometimes be short.”
“The answer is no. No, I am pretty sure there were no extracurricular activities.”
“Then how you account for missing hour and a half?”
“Simple. I can’t.” She took a breath, as though about to say more, then changed her mind. Took another breath, and said, “I can’t, Herbie, but you knew Gus. He always had little things going on the side—I don’t mean women.”
“When he was Service. Before he went private, yes. Yes, he always had little deep side. Secretive. Things he did on his own until it was time to talk about it with the Section it concerned. But he was gone private, Carole …”
“He was working on his book, Herb. He did see people. I knew that. He saw people in London, so it’s quite possible that he saw someone in Salisbury. It’s not unknown.”
“Still, we’ve got to account for that missing ninety minutes, Carole. You can’t help us there, no?”
“No. No, I can’t. Sorry.”
“Okay.” Herb referred back to the telephone log. “There was an incoming call at five-thirty in the morning.”
Carole sighed, touched her face and bit her lip. “The law,” she said. “The place was swarming with cops by then. They arrived around four. Woke me up—”
“Swarming?” Bex asked.
“Well, a pair of plainclothes guys arrived to break the news to me. A couple of uniforms turned up soon afterwards. They had use of the telephone. There were a number of calls out. Three, four maybe. If they got a call back, it didn’t register with me. I wasn’t exactly in the mood for taking calls.”
Herbie nodded. “You took one at five fifty-seven.”
“The Chief called just before six, yes. I took that one.”
“But you didn’t take the five-thirty call?”
“I have no memory of a call then. Why?”
“Because, as you well know, Carole, the monitors are very good. Both here and in the house. The five-thirty call came from a rest stop on the M4 Motorway. About four miles from Heathrow. You know the one? Video games, shop and a couple of restaurants? Greasy-spoon type food.”
“Yes, I think I know it. We’d stop there for a pee if we were driving to London.”
“So, who could have stopped there for a pee at half-past five in the morning on that day? It was answered at this end. The cops call from public phone boxes, do they?”
“In this case they must have done.”
“Then the Chief called?”
“Yes, just before six. Said he was on his way up. Nice. Very good of him.”
“He get here before seven?”
She gave a deep sigh. “I really didn’t take note of the time, Herb. When you’ve just been told that your husband’s been killed by a car bomb, you don’t exactly sit around looking at your watch.”
“You took a call around seven-seventeen. It’s logged here, and shows as answered manually. Not the answerphone. Seven-seventeen on the dot.”
“I have no memory of that. The Chief was here by then—I think. I think he was here.”
“This call—seven-seventeen—came from a public telephone at Heathrow Airport.”
“Don’t remember it.”
“Who’d call you from Heathrow at seven-seventeen, Carole?”
“For heaven’s sake, Herb, I don’t know. There were a number of calls in and out. I know the Chief made several calls and took one—from Tony Worboys …”
“That’s right. Tony called him at eight-twelve. He called from my cottage, which isn’t a cottage anymore.”
“Lots of people called. Even that bitch Angela called …”
“Not until after she heard it on the news. Angela, the former Mrs. Keene, called from her home at nine-twenty. Who else called?”
“Herb, I didn’t take count. There were various calls. I didn’t log them in and out.”
“No, but the machinery did.”
“Then ask the damned machinery.”
“That’s what we’re doing.”
“I didn’t even know the Dower House was linked to the telephone computer in the main house.” She all but shouted in anger.
Herbie made a harrumphing noise. “They probably forgot to unhook the Dower House phones. Accident, but we got a complete log.”
“So you don’t remember the seven-seventeen call?” Bex pressed.
“No. Bitsy was here by then. Ask her. She could’ve taken it.”
“We’re going to ask her. Thought we’d do you a favor and talk to you first.”
“Well, I can’t remember every call that came in on that day. It was like a mad house, and I was in no condition …Oh, Herb, I’d help you if I could.” She caught his eyes with her own, spaniel eyes. Pleading, don’t be too hard on old Carole, Herb.
“Two thirty—the next morning. Middle of the night.”
“What about it?”
“Two-thirty—Chinese dentist time …”
“What?”
“Tooth hurtie.” Herb grinned the Halloween grin, did not even get a flicker of a smile from the bad joke. “Go better second house.” He switched off the grin. “Call at two-thirty in the morning. That was answered. You answer that one, Carole?”
“I don’t recall one at two-thirty.”
“Funny. It was picked up at this end. They show it as picked up quickly, within a couple of seconds. The machines are all-knowing, omnipotent, but you know that.”
“Of course I know it.”
“Two-thirty was picked up very quick.”
“Very quickly, Herb,” Bex corrected him.
“Sure,” he nodded to himself. “You pick up the one at two-thirty, Carole?”
“I don’t remember. Perhaps the log’s wrong. Could be a call going into the main house.”
“Definitely not.” He shook his big shaggy head. “Two-thirty, Carole? This one’s important.”
“Why so?”
“Came in from overseas. Abroad. Out of the country. America, we think. Maybe New York.”
“Who the hell would call me from New York at that time of night?”
“That’s what we need to know.”
“No memory of it.”
“Then get your memory into gear, Carole. We’re doing all this work to find out who bla
sted old Gus from face of the earth. Need your cooperation.”
“You’ve got my cooperation, Herb. I want to know as much as you.”
“Two-thirty from New York?” Bex prodded.
“Don’t recall it.”
Herb, watching her hands, saw the involuntary twitch. The fingers of the right hand giving a little jump as they lay over her left hand. Bull’s-eye, Herb thought. A hit, a palpable hit.
“A call from overseas in the early hours of the morning and you don’t remember?”
“The doc gave me a sedative. Said I needed some sleep.”
“You took this sedative?”
“Of course I took it, Herb. What’s this all about anyway? You think I offed poor old Gus?”
“We got everyone as a suspect.”
“Oh, grief. Me? You’d suspect me?”
“Everyone, Carole. You know the form.” A tiny conciliatory tone from Bex.
“You also made a call from the main house the other morning.” Herbie looked at her as though she had committed a truly cardinal sin.
“I did?”
“You know you did, Carole.” Bex again. “You were seen making it and it was logged.”
“Okay, so I made a call. In fact, I went over to the main house to get that video of Gus’s lecture and demonstration. Nobody seemed to mind.”
“Good video. Very puzzling and really good theory.” Herb paused. “You made a call to Martin Brook at the Office.”
“What if I did?”
“Why, Carole?”
“Because Martin’s a good lad. Gus brought him up in the ways of the world—the old world.”
“So you called him on a whim?” Bex asked.
“Not really. Bitsy told me he had called the Dower House. Bitsy’s been very good. She’s been over to see me almost every day, which is more than can be said of you, Herb.”
“So what you talk about? Old times? The changing seasons of the world of secrets?”
“No. If you want to know, I asked him if I could give the tape to you.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Martin, if you hadn’t heard, is the Lord High Inquisitor designate. Which also means he’ll be in charge of everything down here.”