Halfway through his story, Roger halted, took out a fine linen handkerchief and wiped his eyes. “Her sister-in-law was staying here with her. It was she who discovered the poor woman. After a preliminary investigation by the local police, the sister-in-law made arrangements for Elizabeth to be sent back to the states for burial. That is all we know, and I am deeply sorry to complicate your study with such a sad tale, but there you have it.”
Matt was reeling with the information about Elizabeth’s death and the fear he had reached a dead end to his search when a new lead struck him. “I apologize, Mr. Gillian for reviving a bad memory for you, but if you don’t mind just one more question. Do you have any information about Mrs. Champion’s sister-in-law? She wasn’t listed in Mrs. Champion’s medical records, and perhaps she could provide some useful information.”
“As far as I remember, the woman lived in a small rural village in western Wales and left for her home immediately. I can have the clerk look up her name for you if you wish, although I doubt there is any further information or forwarding address. I would suggest you check with the local police. They probably kept some records on her. Mrs. Champion’s death is a blemish on the history and reputation of the Royal Arms Hotel, and although it was an accident, the fact it happened in this beloved establishment is still rather upsetting.”
Matt nodded his understanding, and Mr. Gillian excused himself with apparent relief the discussion was over. The mere memory of the event and the thought of any investigation disturbing the atmosphere of his hotel or his other guests had nearly brought Roger Gillian to coughing spasms. Simply recalling the whole affair had given him heartburn, and Mr. Gillian could barely contain his impatience to end the conversation. He was thoroughly relieved when Matt finally ceased his questioning and accepted Roger’s suggestion to take his interest to London’s police department instead.
Without any further information from the hotel, Matt was facing certain defeat unless the aunt could be found. With no forwarding address, he would not be able to find out where she directed Elizabeth’s body for burial. Perhaps since her body was returned to the States, the police might have the information he needed. It seemed his day’s agenda was ordained.
The London streets were as busy as downtown New York City at midday. The air was misty, but not cold, as the crowds pushed and surged in both directions. The entire scene flowed with a surreal but electric quality. There was little space on the sidewalk to keep one’s footing, and if a person found himself too close to an edge, it was difficult to keep his balance and could easily tumble into the street. Trams, bicycles, the famous red buses, and a variety of small vehicles—Matt thought resembled props from a Mr. Bean comedy—honked noisily and roared past. Once or twice, Matt discovered if he hesitated at all, he would almost be lifted off his feet and carried along with the crowd.
It was fortunate he was not more than five blocks from the police station, and Mr. Gillian’s directions were quite precise. If he was a little less vigilant in watching for his exit from the crowded sidewalk, he would have been swept many blocks further and would have lost his way. It was somewhat intoxicating to be jostled along with the crowd in a strange city, more so because it was not a familiar experience or one he would have thought he would enjoy. But I guess, ‘when in Rome,’ he thought again, mimicking Jeremy York’s cliché.
The London Police Station seemed ancient. The building appeared to have stood its ground for centuries with high granite steps that rose up the front with watchful lions standing guard on each side of the doors. Officers were coming and going, up and down the stairs, two and three at a time. It must be the changing of the guard, Matt mused, watching the pattern of activity. Inside, the building smelled old. The yellowed ceiling held ten or twelve little fans circling slowly like buzzards over their dying meal. A staircase went up one side of the entranceway, disappearing into the ten stories above his head. Locating the main desk, Matt started across the foyer toward his goal.
Three detectives were standing by the desk, their hats, coats, and umbrellas already in their hands, apparently, they were on their way out. One of the men, younger than the others, looked up and made eye contact with Matt as he made his way in their direction. His companions stopped their conversation only long enough to assess the visitor, determine he wasn’t someone they needed to pay much attention to and started toward the door. The younger man, however, had the look of an eager youth. Anxious to be of service, he stepped around his departing colleagues and waited for Matt to approach. “May I help you, sir?”
“Thanks, I’d appreciate that,” replied Matt. “I’ve come from the Royal Arms Hotel seeking information about a woman’s death a few months ago. Can you point me in the right direction?”
“I’ll try,” the young man replied. “Do you know if there is an open investigation about her death?” he asked.
“No, I don’t think so, her death was ruled an accident, I think.”
“In that case, it should be easy to find what you are looking for. You can take the stairs if you wish, but if you head down the corridor on the left, toward the back of the building, there is a small lift that will take you to the second floor. Find the room down the way, on your right, marked Archives. It is easy to find. The clerk inside should be able to assist you.”
“Thanks for the help.” Matt shook the young man’s hand and hurried on his way down the hall.
Terry Healy watched for a moment to make certain the man was following his directions, and then headed out the front door to catch up with his older companions. They were headed for the Flying Eagles Pub, and he hoped they would save him a seat.
Chapter Eleven
Over the years, not only were Kate and Lilly his protégés but also after the death of her husband, Elizabeth was receptive to occasionally helping Ben and the CIA. She assisted on brief assignments, which called for a more mature participant. While she had none of the specialized training her daughters did, she possessed an intuitiveness about people which Ben recognized. Elizabeth was an accomplished pianist and performed at numerous concerts. With her polished ease and quiet elegance, she was able to fill particular roles within certain settings Ben needed to fill. After word of the accident in London, Ben headed off to London to handle the affair. Ben knew the drowning was no accident.
It was pretty clear what happened. As at all the major hotels throughout the world, Iranian agents worked at the Royal Arms. Rather than use an agent from the London CIA office, who may be recognized, Ben sent Elizabeth to the Royal Arms on a rather benign assignment to listen for word of a growing cell operating in the British Isles. Internet chatter and intelligence reports of terrorist activity had been escalating for several months, and it was obvious something of great importance was buzzing in the air. Large numbers of CIA agents, as well as several other international security teams, flooded most major European cities, all attempting to sniff out the details and find the proverbial smoking gun.
Ben realized in spite of the CIA’s precautions and Elizabeth’s careful demeanor, something must have given her away and although she should not have been in any danger, for some reason she was targeted for elimination. Although Ben knew it would have the opposite effect, he speculated her death was meant to be a warning to the CIA, Interpol, and other agencies to back off their probing. Her nightly swims provided ample opportunity to take her out with little risk to her attacker. However, although Elizabeth was to be the intended victim, it was her sister-in-law Lauren that met the deadly fate.
On their last night before leaving London, Lauren decided to join Elizabeth in the pool. Elizabeth stepped out of the pool to use the restroom, leaving the pool and her sister-in-law alone. The Iranian waiter peeking through the pool’s glass doors saw only one lone swimmer and assumed it to be Elizabeth. Lauren probably never heard the man who hit her broadly on the side of the head with the edge of a heavy silver tray. The injury resembled a blow which could have been caused by the diving board, and the investigation was de
termined to be an accident by the local coroner. Although Lauren was a fairly good swimmer, unconscious, she never had a chance.
Ben Madison was never one to leave loose ends and efficiently cleaned up all the details. He was able to stop most of the news reports about the accident and head off a police investigation. After a couple of phone calls from the U.S. State Department, the London police were agreeable to leaving the case in Ben’s hands for cleanup. Ben and his superiors decided to let the operatives in London, the ones Elizabeth was investigating, believe they had successfully killed Elizabeth Champion, a fact backed up by the coroner’s report, the police files and some local newspaper coverage.
It was Elizabeth’s death that was reported and not Lauren’s. They were similar in height, and general appearance and the hotel staff accepted the women’s switched identities, and with no one to present a challenge, the ruse worked. It was a pointless tragedy that her sister-in-law was killed, but Ben and Elizabeth harbored no doubts the numbing blow to the side of Lauren’s head had been intended for the girl’s mother. Lauren’s body was sent to her home in Wales by way of a route through the states.
Elizabeth wanted to help find the killer, but Ben knew it was best to get her out of London and out of danger. With Lauren’s passing, her home in Wales would belong to Elizabeth and her daughters. It was a perfect spot to send her. Elizabeth slipped out of the hotel under cover of night, safe from further attacks.
It was no mystery to Ben or the State Department what group had committed this terrible act, but they were unable to pin down the actual perpetrator within the hotel staff. They knew the murderer eventually would be found, but this was one crime they would have to leave alone for the time being. Ben turned over the investigation to some of his allies in London. Their investigation would be conducted quietly and behind the scenes.
As he did with all his recruits, Ben used whatever circumstances he might have at his disposal to shape the individual’s character to mesh with his. It was his way and his job. People’s lives depended upon it. The twins had proved to be exceptional students, but their hearts were still too soft. Unfortunate as it was, the drowning in London was precisely the kind of tool he needed to strip away the twin’s innocence and indoctrinate them further into the agency’s philosophies.
Ben also worried if Elizabeth remained a target, he should be more vigilant with her daughters. His gut told him there was a connection between Kate’s assignment with the Errington guy in Philadelphia and the attack on Elizabeth. Particularly because about the same time, another agent, Samir Ali Mansoor, had been exposed and killed while undercover in a suspected terrorist cell in Philadelphia. Before his death, Samir was able to send a brief message to Ben, but the meaning was difficult to decipher. “Imminent air-born attack Errington.” Ben just knew the events were tied. He could feel it in his bones. He didn’t know what it was yet, but he was determined to find out.
The CIA had limited information about the terrorist group operating in London, but they shared a similar footprint to a suspected group working with one of Matt Errington’s co-workers. That alone set his radar twitching. Just to be safe, he decided to pull Kate out of the relationship and end the assignment.
Thanks to Kate’s resourcefulness, the ugly artwork she and Matt purchased had been fitted with a transmitter that worked undetected for several weeks. Conversations Kate and Matt shared gave the department enough information to confirm their suspicions about Matt's colleague, Philip Forester. There was a situation to be investigated. The assignment was nearly ready to conclude, and Ben felt the love affair between Kate and Matt was becoming too real for both parties. He decided it was better to nip the whole thing in the bud. With the timing of the hockey game tickets, he gave the girls the order to evacuate the apartment and perform the standard procedure to wipe it clean.
MATT FOUND THE ARCHIVES room at the London police station jammed floor to ceiling with shelves holding boxes and folders with barely enough space inside to fully open the door. There was an overwhelming smell to it of old dust, old ink, and old air. How many centuries are buried in here? he wondered. After only five minutes in the building, he knew it would be a ghastly place to spend a workday. Two little lights, which hung from the ceiling, gave the dusty room a sepia look. Limited light, cast from two narrow windows, streamed down murky twin columns of golden dust. A single table amid the overloaded shelves was the only visible workspace.
Not spying anyone at first, Matt was about to walk back out when a raspy voice spoke to him from high up on the wall.
“May I help you?”
Turning in the direction of the voice, Matt spotted a slightly built man, who appeared to be about a hundred and ten years old, hanging sideways off a ladder. Without hesitation or small talk, Matt got right to the point. He wanted to get what he could and get out into the fresh air. I’m looking for some information about a death that occurred in the fall of last year at the Royal Arms Hotel.” No time for chitchat, he thought. Not in here.
The surprisingly spry senior caretaker of the dust room quickly descended and limped his way over to Matt. “Just what date are you looking for?”
“I don’t have an actual date. Do you need one to begin a search?” Matt asked.
“Well,” the man answered, scratching the bald spot on the top of his head, “it certainly would help if you did. My files are organized very carefully. As you can see, it is important not to lose something in here, might take quite a while to find it again.” He smiled a near-toothless grin.
“Yes, I can see that would be a problem,” Matt answered, tilting his head back to take in the sheer volume of boxes.
“I like to file reports under the dates, but I do file things under certain categories too. You said it was a death. Was it murder, accident, natural causes, or suicide?”
“I believe it was an accidental drowning.”
“Well then let me look for that. Last year, huh? Know what month?”
“October,” Matt said. “I think it was October.”
The curator of the archives limped back to the ladder and started pulling it toward the front of the room. He scratched his head again, thought for a moment, and then lined it up with one of the shelving units that reached clear to the ceiling.
“Hold on a moment, this may take a moment,” the clerk said, climbing his way to the top.
“No problem,” Matt answered, but wished the man would hurry. The clerk dug around for a few minutes, pulling one box forward after another. The cloud of dust that rose with each action dimmed the lights even more. “Nope,” said the raspy voice in between hacking coughs. “There are no reports from last October about any drowning deaths at all. I have four stabbings, one suicide, a fall off a double-decker bus, and several traffic-related deaths but no drownings. Sorry. Are you sure this station handled the case?”
“I think so,” Matt nodded.
“Well just in case you didn’t know, there are two different police forces, the Metropolitan Police Force and the City of London Police. Besides, there are seventeen different station houses around London with two others much closer to the hotel than this one.”
“I was directed here; I didn’t know about the other stations. Is there some way to find out which one would have taken the report?”
“Well,” drawled the clerk as he stopped to spit in his handkerchief, “not really.” Trying to catch his breath, he wheezed in Matt’s direction, “If I were you, I would try station Number Eight, on Arlington Road. They have better computers.”
Great idea, Matt thought. I can’t wait. “Thanks,” he said out loud. “I’m sorry I made you climb up there for nothing.”
The clerk just stared back at Matt. “No bother, that’s my job, you know.”
Practically running through the stationhouse, Matt couldn’t get out the front doors fast enough. Filling his lungs with fresh air, Matt was not sure if Mr. Gillian had sent him there on a wild goose chase. He had clearly directed him to that station. Why would
Gillian mislead me? It’s as if he didn’t want me to find anything. Wouldn’t he have known which police department worked on the case, he thought. I guess he could have been mistaken, Matt chafed at the waste of time. Reluctant to go back to the main desk and ask directions for the Arlington Station, Matt wanted to stay outside but knew he would never find it on his own. Even as foggy and damp as it had become, at least he could breathe. Lord, as he walked back in through the doors, I will never complain about where I work again.
The Arlington Station was further away than he wanted to walk and the officer at the desk suggested he take the bus from the opposite corner. The ride was bumpy and cold. Matt stood near the door of the full bus and clung on for dear life as he watched London go by. Shops and little houses, big buildings and historical landmarks, all mingled together and tightly hugged the ribbons of road upon which they traveled. It took close to a half hour to reach his destination with all the stops the bus made. He jumped off and started his search all over again at Station Number Eight.
Although much brighter and less cluttered, this station house was of about the same age as the last one. Matt waited patiently while an officer made him a copy of the brief report. According to their records, Elizabeth Champion was listed as an accidental drowning victim. The event happened on the eighteenth of October of the prior year. Because it was not a threat to the public, a murder or other act requiring a police investigation, there was little to go on except that she was an American, with few details about her death. Nothing more that would help Matt find her or give him another lead. He would have to go back to the hotel and figure out his next move.
Disappointment fogged his mind. He was tired. He lost his direction several times and finally hailed a taxicab to get back to the hotel. Matt collapsed in his room, chilled to the bone from London’s damp air, which soaked his clothes, and thoroughly drained by frustration. His last thought before sleep ensnared him was a mental note to have another chat with Roger Gillian. There must be something else he can get from him, even if that meant telling him the truth about Kate.
Death & Other Lies Page 9