The Short Forever (16 page)

33

STONE LISTENED AS AN OCCASIONAL footstep struck the wooden floor above, instead of a rug, and it became apparent that more than one person was in the house, and, from the sound of the heavy steps, they were men. They moved in and out of rooms on the floor above, and then they stopped. Either they were standing still or walking on rugs.

Then Stone heard a noise in the wine cellar, and dim light appeared around the edges of the door to the little office. He could hear voices now, though they were muffled, and the men appeared to be speaking a foreign language. He put an ear to the door, trying to hear better, but it didn’t help much. Then there was a louder voice and two sharp reports, which Stone knew could only be gunshots. They were not very loud, but not silenced, either—probably a small-caliber handgun. A moment later, there were two further shots, and he knew what that meant. The light disappeared from around the door, and then there was nothing but silence, until he heard footsteps in the foyer, and the sound of the front door opening and closing.

Stone checked his watch, the hands of which glowed in the dark, and waited a full five minutes. Then he switched on the office light. Something made him look down, and he did not like what he saw. Blood was seeping under the door. He pulled it open slightly and listened; not a sound. He opened the door, raised the latch holding the wine racks shut, and pushed. They moved a couple of inches, then stopped against something soft.

Stone got as low as he could, put his shoulder against the racks, and pushed hard. Slowly, whatever was blocking the racks moved, and he was able to open them wide enough to step through. Light from the office fell on a man’s back. Stone stepped between the racks and over the body and found the ceiling light. Not one, but two bodies lay on the floor of the wine cellar; they were the two men who had abducted him, and each of them had two new orifices in his head.

Stone inspected the wounds; small caliber, he thought, probably a .22 pistol, maybe a .25. He checked the coat pockets of the two corpses and came up with two Greek passports. Greek? What the hell did that mean? Nobody was mad at the Greeks, were they? Who would shoot two Greeks in a wine cellar in Mayfair? And why would a bunch of Greeks abduct and interrogate him?

His first impulse was to go upstairs and call the police, in the person of Detective Inspector Evelyn Throckmorton, but then he had second thoughts. How could he explain his own presence in the house? If he tried, he’d have to explain everything he’d done since he’d arrived in the United Kingdom, including the identity of his client. Also, his client had not asked him to search this house; he’d done it on his own. He would make a terrible witness, too, having seen nothing and having heard only footsteps and gunshots.

Discretion, in this case, was definitely the better part of valor. He stepped over a body, back into the office, and wiped anything he might have touched. Then he closed the office door, wiped the knob, and secured the two wine racks in place. He wiped the knob of the wine cellar door and went upstairs, wiping anything else he might have touched in the house. Finally, he put on his raincoat, retrieved his umbrella from the stand, opened the door a crack, and peered up and down the mews. It was dark now, and streetlights were on, but the mews was empty. He let himself out, wiped the doorknob, inside and out, closed the door behind him, and walked down Farm Street in the direction of Berkeley Square.

He had reached the square before he saw anyone else, and he kept the umbrella low to keep anyone from remembering his face. Deciding against a taxi, he walked across Berkeley Square and up the little hill into Dover Street. The gallery was closed and dark. He dropped the keys to the Farm Street house through the mail slot.

What now? He wanted to talk to Lance. He walked up to New Bond Street, then to Conduit Street, found a cab at the Westbury Hotel, and gave the driver the Chester Street address that he’d heard Sarah give Lance. As the cab made its way through the West End, he thought about the two dead men on the wine cellar floor at Lance’s house. How long would it be before anyone found them? Lance clearly didn’t intend to go back to the house anytime soon. Was there a housekeeper or a cleaning lady? If so, would she go down to the wine cellar? He retraced his own steps, thought about the time line from a policeman’s perspective. He was without an alibi from the time he left the gallery until he got into the taxi at the Westbury. How long was that? An hour at the most. Where else could he have been for an hour? Monica and Sarah knew he had the keys to the house, including the wine cellar. But no one would have any reason to question them, would they?

He thought about the cases he had solved as a cop by interviewing people at the periphery of a case. Any thorough investigation would get to them soon enough. Should he get out of the country? No, that would be the worst thing he could do. The cab stopped in front of the Chester Street house; Stone paid the driver and rang the bell. Erica answered the door.

“Oh, Stone, come in,” she said, giving him a peck on the cheek. “Where have you been?”

Already, he needed an alibi. “I was at the gallery for a while, then I did some window-shopping.” In the pouring rain? That was weak; he’d have to do better than that if the police questioned him.

“Come on in; Lance is on the phone.” She showed him into the drawing room, which was empty. The place was handsome and spacious, but it looked as though it had been decorated by a bachelor with the help of a maiden aunt; the furniture was comfortable, but dowdy, and the curtains were too elaborate. “Awful, isn’t it?” Erica asked cheerfully.

“Fairly.”

“Can I get you a drink?”

“Yes, please; bourbon, if there’s any in the house; Scotch, if there isn’t.”

She went away and came back with a double old-fashioned glass filled with ice and a brown liquor. “No bourbon; try this.”

He sipped it—strong and dark and peaty. “It’s excellent, what is it?”

“Laphroaig—a single-malt Scotch whiskey from the island of Islay.” (She pronounced it “Islah.”)

“I’m not usually a Scotch drinker, but this will do just fine.” He thought she seemed oddly cheerful and unaffected for a young woman who had had to leave her home on a moment’s notice, for very odd reasons. “Are you doing all right?”

“Just fine. Lance will be off the phone in a minute, I’m sure; he’s already been on it since we arrived here. Ali and Sheila are upstairs napping—or something.” She smiled impishly.

Stone thought they must be napping, not something else, not after having seen their business explode before their eyes earlier in the day.

“Tell me about Ali and Sheila,” Stone said. He wanted to hear what Erica had to say about them before Lance returned.

“They’re just friends of Lance’s,” she said. “They have an antique shop in Chelsea.”

Had, Stone thought. “What nationality are they?”

“Ali is Syrian, Sheila Lebanese, I think.”

Syrian? Lebanese? Did they have something against the Greeks, or vice versa? He couldn’t make any sense of this. “How did Lance meet them?”

“Business—some importing or exporting thing, I think.”

“Does Lance have a lot of friends in London?”

“Just the ones you’ve met,” she said. “Monica, Sarah, Ali, and Sheila. He’s the sort of person who seems to have lots of acquaintances and few friends.”

I’ll bet, Stone thought. “Have you met a lot of his acquaintances?”

“Not really; once in a while someone will come to the house for a business meeting.”

“To the house? Doesn’t Lance have an office?”

“Not really; if he needs space for a meeting, he uses a club or a hotel meeting room.”

“I guess Lance travels pretty light, then.”

“Pretty light,” Lance said from the doorway.

“Oh, you’re finally off the phone,” Erica said. “Would you like a drink?”

“Yes, some Scotch, please.”

“Try the Laphroaig,” Stone said, raising his glass. Stone opened his mouth to tell Lance what he’d experienced in his wine cellar, then changed his mind. So far, nobody knew he’d actually been at the house; perhaps it was better to keep it that way, at least, for the moment.

The three of them chatted idly for a while.

“Anybody hungry?” Erica asked.

“Now that you mention it,” Stone replied.

“There’s no food here; I guess we’d better go out somewhere.”

“There’s plenty of food back at Farm Street,” Lance said. “Let’s go back there and fix something. I’ve been on the phone with some people, and I think it’s safe to go back now.”

Stone wondered what kind of people could tell Lance that.

“Great!” Erica said. “I feel like cooking. Shall we wake Ali and Sheila?”

“Oh, I think they’re down for the night,” Lance said. “Let’s leave them until morning.” He drained his glass and got up.

Stone got up, too. He thought of begging off, but he was curious. “I’ll see if I can find us a cab.”

The rain had stopped. He found a cab almost immediately.

34

THEY GOT OUT OF THE CAB IN FRONT of the Farm Street house, and Stone paid the driver while Lance unlocked the door. Stone followed Lance and Erica up the stairs.

Lights were switched on and everything looked quite normal, Stone thought. Coats were hung up, and he followed them into the kitchen.

“Another drink, anybody?”

Stone nodded.

“We’ve got bourbon,” she said, “or would you rather stick to the Laphroaig?”

“I’ll stick with the Scotch, since I’ve started on it,” Stone replied.

There was a banquette in the kitchen, and Erica made Stone and Lance sit down there, while she began to put some dinner together.

“How about spaghetti Bolognese?” she asked.

“Fine,” Stone and Lance said together.

Erica put some ground steak on the stove to brown and a pot of water on to boil and began chopping an onion. After a few minutes she had all the ingredients in the pot; she covered it, poured herself a drink, and sat down next to Lance. “There,” she said, “we’ll let it simmer for a while; by the time the water has boiled and the pasta is done, it should be ready.”

Nobody seemed to have anything to say. If Erica had had any questions to ask Lance about why they had so suddenly abandoned the house, and just as suddenly returned to it, she didn’t ask them now, and neither did Stone, though he was dying to know. In his experience, Lance did not answer questions to which Stone wanted answers.

“What are you working on these days?” Stone asked Lance. Might as well try.

“Oh, this and that; nothing startling.”

“Would you care to be more specific?”

Lance smiled a little smile. “Nope. What are you working on, Stone?”

“Zip,” Stone replied. “This is now strictly vacation time.”

“How long do you plan to stay in London?”

“Oh, I don’t know, a few more days, to help Sarah get through James’s estate stuff.”

“Doesn’t she have Julian Wainwright for that?” Lance asked.

“Yes, but she seems to want my advice, too. Anyway, I’m cheaper—couple of weekends in the country, a few good dinners.”

The water began to boil, and Erica got up and put the pasta into the pot. “Six minutes for al dente,” she said. She pointed to an empty wine rack. “Looks like a trip to the cellar is in order.”

Stone gulped.

Lance sighed, reached into his pocket for the keys, and put them on the table. “Stone, will you bring up a few bottles? I have to go to the john.”

Stone was reluctant but tried not to show it. “Where is the cellar?”

“The door is under the stairs. I’m sorry, but the bulb just inside is burned out, and we don’t have a spare; be careful going down the steps. The cellar light is just inside the door; you pull a string.”

Stone got up and took the keys. “Anything special you want?”

“There are two racks dead ahead. Those are my bottles; the rest belong to the house’s owner. Bring a few bottles of the Italian stuff.”

Stone nodded and walked into the hallway, pretending to find his way. Lance walked past him into the hallway powder room and closed the door behind him.

It was easier this time, with some light from the hallway, and Stone found his way to the bottom of the cellar stairs. He got the key into the lock and took a deep breath; this was going to require a performance; he would have to run back up the stairs, breathless, and report the presence of two corpses in the cellar. He got the door open and, in the dark, felt for the string to turn on the cellar lights. He found it, hesitated for a moment; should he yell out something, or just run back up the stairs to report the bodies? He pulled the string.

The lights came on to reveal the wine cellar as he had first seen it. No bodies. No bloodstains. No sign that anyone had ever been there, let alone been murdered there. How long since he had left the cellar? An hour and a half? Two hours? He thought about it for a few moments, then did as he had been told: He went to the wine racks dead ahead, the ones covering the office door, and chose four bottles of wine. Then, with two tucked under an arm, he switched off the light, locked the cellar door, and went back upstairs.

“Find everything all right?” asked Lance, who was back seated at the banquette.

“Sure,” Stone replied, setting the bottles and the keys on the table. He sat down and resumed his drink.

Lance got up, found a corkscrew, and uncorked a bottle of Chianti Classico, then put the other three bottles into the kitchen wine rack. He got three glasses from a cupboard and set them on the table, then tasted the wine. “That should do the trick,” he said, and sat down again.

Erica tasted the sauce, then began setting the table. A moment later, she poured the pasta into a collander in the sink, then, while it drained, switched off the stove. She got a large platter from a cupboard, emptied the pasta into it, then poured the sauce on top of it and set it on the table. She brought some Parmesan cheese from the fridge, grated it over the pasta, sat down, and began serving them.

“Buon appetito,” Lance said, raising his glass.

They dug into the pasta.

Stone ate the food, which was very good, and wondered if Lance was the coolest person he’d ever met, or if he just had no idea what had occurred in his house a couple of hours before. “Who did you say owned the house?” he asked.

“A fellow in the Foreign Office, name of Richard Creighton; he’s out in the East somewhere, I believe; I pay the rent directly into his bank account. It’s quite a nice house, isn’t it?”

“It certainly is. It’s fairly lived in, for a house owned by someone who’s never here.”

“Well, I guess these diplomats have got to have some sort of home to come back to. Anyway,
I’m
living in it, and I suppose he rented it to others before me.”

“I’ve done a few things to make it better,” Erica said. “The living room curtains are mine, and I’ve replaced all the bedding in the master suite.”

“Mmmm,” Stone said. “Wonderful sauce.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“What plans do the two of you have for the next few days?” Stone asked, because he couldn’t think of anything else.

“We’re in London,” Lance said. “Unless something comes up.”

“What might come up?”

“Oh, you never know, sometimes a deal requires travel.”

“What are Ali and Sheila going to do about their shop?”

Lance shrugged. “I suppose it’s insured.”

“The police are going to want to talk to them.”

Lance stopped eating and looked as if he hadn’t thought of that.

“I suppose you’re right; Ali can call them in the morning. After all, they weren’t in the shop at the time, so they can hardly be of much help.”

“I can tell you from experience that the police are looking for them at this moment,” Stone said. “They don’t ignore bombings, and they’ll want to hear who Ali and Sheila think might have done this.”

“I expect so,” Lance said, resuming his dinner. “Well, that’s Ali’s problem, not mine. I expect he’ll handle it in the morning.”

“The sooner, the better,” Stone said. “Tell me, do you have a theory about who did it?”

“Not a clue, old bean,” Lance said, looking perfectly innocent. “I hope Ali will leave me out of it when he talks to the cops.”

“Do Ali and Sheila belong to some group that another group might be angry with?”

“What sort of group did you have in mind?”

“Well, they’re Middle Easterners, aren’t they?”

“Yes.”

“I should think that would give you a variety of groups to choose from—Palestinian, Israeli, Osmin ben whatshisname?”

“I suppose so, but as far as I know, they’re not into politics.”

“What are they into?”

“Making money,” Lance replied. “At least, until today. They may want to rethink their business after this; I’m sure they must have lost most, perhaps all, of their inventory.”

“I expect so,” Stone said. They continued eating their dinner, and Stone stopped asking questions; there seemed to be no point, what with the answers he was getting.