Sophie Medina: Ghost Image Part 21

"Who were you talking to just now? My future bodyguard?"

"I already left a message with two guys I know. Hopefully I'll hear from at least one of them real soon." He brushed a lock of hair off my face and tucked it behind my ear. "That call was to an old friend in the D.C. office of the FBI."

"I thought you guys in the CIA and the FBI didn't talk to each other."

"The smart guys talk to each other, we just don't tell the others about it. He made a few calls for me. I'm sorry, baby. You're not going to like this, but the medical examiner is going to rule that Kevin Boyle's death was an accident."

"That's not possible."

"My buddy says Kevin sustained a basal skull fracture and that's what killed him. In other words, he cracked his skull. There were no injuries consistent with a struggle."

"Someone pushed him, and that's how it happened. I'm sure of it."

"Then call the officer who questioned you," he said. "Tell her you found a five-million-dollar motive for why it might not be an accident."

"I left her card at home," I said. "I'll wait until this afternoon when it's proper business hours in Was.h.i.+ngton and then track her down."

But once we were back in my room eating breakfast, I said, "You know what's going to happen, don't you? If I tell Officer Carroll about the book, the police are going to confiscate it as evidence."

He said through a mouthful of eggs, "Not your problem."

I shook my head. "What a mess."

Just before seven, James gave a discreet tap on the door and Nick let him in.

"Your car's waiting outside, Mr. Canning, and your luggage is already in the boot. It's been a pleasure having you stay with us, sir."

He left so we could say goodbye in private. "I'll text you or call as soon as I hear back from my security buddies," Nick said.

"I almost forgot to ask where you're going now."

"Doha."

The capital of Qatar. "Is that the last stop? When will you be home?"

"Almost the last stop. And I'll be home soon." He kissed me. "I love you."

"I love you more."

Then he was gone.

I ran to the window and waited until he emerged from the hotel to climb into the Bentley. He must have made some joke to the doorman, who broke into a hearty laugh as he closed the pa.s.senger car door. A moment later, as the big car circled Carlos Place, gliding toward Grosvenor Square, the mist from the fountain vents at the base of the two plane trees drifted into the air, perfectly timed so it seemed to swallow the Bentley. When it cleared fifteen seconds later, Carlos Place was empty.

I poured the last of the breakfast coffee into my cup and finally got "No Little Plans" from the writing desk where it had been sitting since I arrived. Olivia Upshaw had e-mailed late yesterday, asking how I was getting on. I replied just now that I was in London-with the ma.n.u.script-and promised to get in touch when I got home next week.

The author, whom I hadn't met, had done a terrific job of telling the story of the creation of the National Mall with the high-stakes tension and drama of a blockbuster novel. For the next two hours I was caught up in the egos of a parade of larger-than-life personalities and the many clashes, feuds, and missed opportunities that began with Pierre L'Enfant and George Was.h.i.+ngton and ended with the Senate's McMillan Commission, which resurrected L'Enfant's grand plan for Was.h.i.+ngton and established the Mall as it was today. My phone alarm went off at nine, a reminder it was time to get ready for my meeting with Edward Jaine. I skimmed the last pages of the book, along with Olivia's notes about the final photos she wanted, panoramic views of Was.h.i.+ngton from Pierre L'Enfant's grave, which was in front of Arlington House, Robert E. Lee's home in Arlington Cemetery, overlooking the city he'd designed.

By nine thirty I had showered and dressed, and was downstairs in the hotel lobby. While I waited for a cab, I phoned Alastair Innes. The call went to voice mail, and I left a message asking him to call me back as a black cab swept into Carlos Place. The doorman helped me into the cab and told the driver I was going to Centre Point.

I smiled and thanked him. But I really wasn't looking forward to my meeting with Edward Jaine.

The Paramount restaurant occupies the top two floors in the tower of what was once London's tallest skysc.r.a.per back in the mid-1960s. Now it is dwarfed by other buildings that have sprung up over the years, like NatWest's Tower 42, One Canada Square in Canary Wharf, and most recently, the unusual Gherkin and the exquisite Shard, which, along with the Eye are instantly recognizable on London's skyline. I gave my name and showed my American driver's license to a woman in the lobby, who phoned the restaurant to confirm I was expected upstairs and then directed me to a bank of elevators.

The restaurant and bar were on the thirty-second floor; the floor above was a gla.s.s-enclosed observation deck. When I stepped off the elevator, the first thing I saw was an enormous copper bar behind which mirrored gla.s.s shelves displayed rows and rows of bottles of alcohol. The Art Deco decor was dark and rich, sleek midnight-blue sofas and nubby gray chairs around galvanized metal coffee tables where guests could sit for morning coffee or afternoon tea or drinks at night. Beyond the bar, the tables in the empty restaurant were already set for lunch. The Paramount's big drawing card was the bank of windows that showed off a 360-degree bird's-eye view of London.

Edward Jaine was the only male in the bar among a couple of tables of women who were getting an early start on c.o.c.ktail hour. He was dressed much the same as he'd been at the Austrian amba.s.sador's home the last time I saw him, in jeans and two-tone leather cowboy boots, brown and a textured mottled skin that looked like rattlesnake. His brown leather jacket matched the boots, and a white dress s.h.i.+rt and a red silk scarf hung loose around his neck.

He was seated on a sofa by one of the windows checking his phone as I entered the restaurant. A manila folder and an empty espresso cup sat on the coffee table in front of him. When he saw me, he stood. "Sophie. Good of you to come. Please have a seat."

Already on a first-name basis and yesterday it had been an ultimatum, not an invitation. I took one of the chairs across from his sofa. Edward Jaine sat back against a pile of burnt orange velvet throw cus.h.i.+ons and surveyed me like a sultan receiving a guest in his palace.

A waitress appeared, and he said, "Would you care for something to drink?"

I wanted to get this over with. "No, thank you."

He gave me a cool look. "As you wish." To the waitress he said, "I'll have another espresso."

He asked me, "So what really brings you to London?"

I folded my hands in my lap. "Personal reasons."

"You don't need to be hostile."

"You didn't invite me here, you threatened me if I didn't come. So here I am."

"All right. You have something that belongs to me."

The waitress set down his espresso and her eyes darted between the two of us. "Is everything all right, sir, miss? Can I bring you something else?"

He waved her off. "Everything's fine, thank you."

After she left, he said, "Oh, for G.o.d's sake. I know you have the book, or you know where it is."

"I don't have it."

"I'm not going to play games. How did you get your hands on it in the first place?"

"I found it. And it was Kevin's book, Mr. Jaine."

He wagged a no-no-no playful finger at me. "Ah, but I paid for it."

I had no idea what kind of deal he'd made with Kevin. "Kevin bought it. He found the book in a bookstall on Portobello Road and he paid next to nothing for it since it was at the bottom of a box of old gardening books."

Jaine seemed taken aback that I knew that much. "I gave him the money."

"If you gave him the money, then it was a gift. He's allowed some personal money, even with his vow of poverty." I hoped he didn't know how much money, because I didn't know the limit, either.

He sipped his espresso and said in an even voice, "I have the records to prove it wasn't a gift."

"I'm not going to get in the middle of that," I said. "It's between you and the Franciscans. Leave me out of it."

"I want the book."

"Talk to Father Xavier."

He set down his cup and reached for the folder on the table, spinning it around and shoving it across to me. "Have a look at this."

I opened the folder. A check with a lot of zeros after a number, a substantial amount of money, made out to cash.

"Keep it. For your trouble."

"I don't want your money."

"It's not for you. It's for the Adams Morgan Children's Center. I know you're trying to get that place fixed up. That ought to take care of it."

I felt like he'd knocked the wind out of me. The money would easily pay for fixing up the children's center, with some left over for clothes and other necessities.

"No," I said in a faint voice. "You can't do that-"

He leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees and an earnest look on his face. "I'm not the bad guy here, Sophie. Kevin was at my mother's bedside when she died two years ago. A brain tumor. Her last days were h.e.l.l and Kevin was a living saint. Why do you think I offered him financial a.s.sistance for his research? I wanted to repay his kindness, that's all."

I stared out the window at the enormous green roof and central dome of the British Museum and, in the distance, the bare brown branches of the trees in Russell Square. Last night in the Coburg Bar, Victor had said he resented the way Jaine treated Kevin. But now Edward Jaine insisted his charity came from grat.i.tude, a touching story about a debt to his dying mother.

One of them wasn't telling the truth.

"Why were you and Kevin arguing at the Austrian amba.s.sador's residence the night before he died?"

He straightened and picked up his espresso, finis.h.i.+ng it off and setting the cup down again with a sharp little click. "I don't know what you're talking about."

I closed the folder and pushed it over to him. "I can't accept this. And I can't help you. As I said, this is between you and the Franciscans. I'm sorry, Mr. Jaine. I think we're done here."

I reached for my camera bag and started to get up.

"Leave here without telling me where the book is and I will ask my lawyers to explore the possibility of bringing criminal charges against you."

I caught my breath. "On what grounds?"

"You've stolen a valuable item that belongs to me. It's worth millions."

"I didn't steal anything."

"Good luck proving that. I can make your life a misery." He tapped the folder again. "One last chance. Take the money, use it for those kids, and tell me what I want to know, or I'll see to it that you regret it."

I swung my camera bag over my shoulder and hoped he didn't see how badly my hands were shaking.

"I already do," I said, and left.

17.

I could feel Edward Jaine's eyes on me as I walked across the restaurant and punched the elevator call b.u.t.ton. The door slid open and I stepped in.

I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes. Now what?

The exit to the restaurant brought me outside to a small landing at the top of a flight of stairs overlooking a busy intersection. Just across the street was the Tottenham Court Road tube station. The morning fog had burned off and the raw chill of the past two days was gone. For the first time since I arrived in England, the sun was s.h.i.+ning. I pulled out my phone and discovered I'd missed a call and a text message.

The text was from Nick: Still trying to raise my buddies. Be careful.

I texted back: Don't worry, I'm fine. Call me after you get in.

The call was from the Connaught. A woman at the front desk gave me the message. "A man who said he was the secretary to Archduke Victor Haupt-von Vessey rang here. The archduke asked if you could meet him today at noon at the Anchor pub in Bankside."

How odd that he didn't call me himself. Maybe Victor wanted to talk about how it had gone last night when he told Yasmin he wanted to postpone the wedding. Except the Anchor pub, as famous as it was, was on the other side of the Thames. It seemed like an odd place to meet.

The woman added, "The secretary asked me to pa.s.s the message along and ring him back if you couldn't make it. Otherwise, he'll expect you."

"I can just call the archduke myself. Or the secretary."

"Unfortunately that's not possible," she said. "The archduke is in a meeting. The secretary is with him."

I glanced at my watch. It was only ten thirty. Maybe Victor's meeting was in Bankside. "I can be there at noon."

"Well, then, I guess that's settled. The secretary said it was only necessary to call if you couldn't make it, otherwise the archduke will expect to see you at twelve."

I leaned against the railing, watching the people on the street below. No one looked up or even noticed me. I ran down the stairs into the Underground station, took two trains, and half an hour later got out at London Bridge on the south side of the Thames. There was still almost an hour to kill before meeting Victor.

I've always liked the hustle and bustle of this grittier part of the city, the industrial docks, wharves, and warehouses that tie it to the river, its ancient history dating to the pagan Romans, its rowdy reputation for entertainment as the site of brothels, animal-baiting pits, and playhouses like Shakespeare's Globe during the Tudor era. The notorious Clink Prison was there, and for centuries, the only entrance across the Thames to the City of London was at Southwark Cathedral, which was recorded in William the Conqueror's Domesday Book.

I left the Underground at the Borough Market exit and wandered past the quiet shuttered stalls. Then I walked up the street to the cathedral, where I left a twenty-pound note in the poor box and made my way along the Queen's Walk, the busy pedestrian promenade that followed the river from Westminster Bridge to Tower Bridge.

If I turned left, I'd be heading toward the Globe Theatre and the Anchor pub, where I was supposed to meet Victor. Instead I turned right toward Tower Bridge and, across the river, the ma.s.sive fortifications of the Tower of London itself.

Yesterday Alastair told me that for more than a century the leather seed pouch belonging to the Dutch sailor Jan Teerlink had been locked away in the Tower. More than likely it had been put in some dark cool room deep within the complex, a sprawling fortress of multiple rings that enclosed thick-walled buildings and dozens of smaller towers. Wherever it had been, at least a few of the seeds had been preserved well enough to be regenerated two centuries later, producing plants that were now healthy and thriving at the Millennium Seed Bank.

What place back home had conditions comparable to the Tower of London, somewhere Kevin's seeds could languish undisturbed for two centuries? A building? A cave? If Dolley Madison had gotten them out of the White House before the British burned the city in 1814, the odds were good they had also been transported to somewhere nearby in Virginia along with everything else that left Was.h.i.+ngton. So why hadn't anyone discovered them during the last two hundred years? Either they were so well hidden they couldn't or wouldn't be found, or whoever had them in his possession didn't know what he had.

By now I'd walked as far upriver as the futuristic egg-shaped gla.s.s-and-steel City Hall not far from Tower Bridge. At night it was lit up with concentric rings of lights that reminded me of a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p about to depart for its home planet. I stayed near the bridge taking photographs of the skyline and the river until it was time to walk to the Anchor. The Queen's Walk had become busier and more bustling in the last half hour. A jostling lunchtime crowd spilled out of City Hall and other nearby office buildings to join tourists and anyone else who wanted to enjoy the warm early spring suns.h.i.+ne.

The Anchor pub sat in a cobblestone plaza overlooking the river, a sprawling redbrick building with fire-engine-red windows and doors, a big gold anchor hanging above the entrance, and a macabre history as the site of a pit where the bodies of those who died of the plague had been dumped. William Shakespeare had drunk and dined at the Anchor, as had Charles d.i.c.kens, Samuel Johnson, and Samuel Pepys.