Dirty Work

38

Stone and Carpenter met at the Box Tree, a small, romantic restaurant near his house. They settled at a table, and Stone ordered a bottle of Veuve Clicquot La Grande Dame, his favorite champagne.

“What’s the occasion?” Carpenter asked, when they had clinked glasses and sipped their wine.

“An entire evening, just the two of us, free of the cares of work. What we in America call a ‘date.” ’

She laughed. “And what were we having before?”

“What we in America call ‘wham, bam, thank you, ma’am.” ’

“I didn’t think American men objected to that sort of relationship.”

“It’s not a relationship, it’s just carnal fun—not that I have any objection to carnal fun.”

“So I’ve noticed.”

They looked at the menu and ordered. The waiter poured them more champagne.

“Tell me about yourself,” Stone said.

Carpenter laughed again. “Isn’t that my line? Why is it that our roles seem to be reversed?”

“Roles are reversible, in certain circumstances.”

“What circumstances?”

“When the male has an interest in the female deeper than carnal fun.” Stone thought he caught a blush in her cheeks. “Tell me about yourself,” he said.

“What you mean is, why do I do what I do. Isn’t that right?”

“What people do is often the most important thing about them.”

“What I do is not the most important thing about me,” she said.

“What is?”

“Who I am.”

“And who are you?”

She looked at the table, then around the room for a long moment. “All right, what I do is the most important thing about me. It’s who I am.”

“Imagine that, through no fault of your own, you were unable to continue in your career. Who would you be, then?”

She took a deep draught of her champagne. “That is an unthinkable thought.”

“Surely you’ve seen people sacked from your service, turned out into the cold.”

“Occasionally.”

“Do you think they were what they did?”

“Some of them, I suppose.”

“And what did they do when they could no longer be what they wanted to be?”

“One or two of them . . . did themselves in.”

“Would you do yourself in?”

“Certainly not,” she replied quickly.

“Then what? What would you do? Who would you be?”

“I might ask you the same question.”

“You may, after you’ve answered mine.”

“I’d be a barrister,” she said. “I read law at Oxford, you know. I could very easily qualify.”

“How old are you?”

“Thirty-eight,” she said without hesitation.

“Are there jobs for brand-new thirty-eight-year-old barristers in London?”

“I’d have to go to a smaller town, I suppose.”

“Are there jobs for brand-new, thirty-eight-year-old barristers in smaller towns?”

She shrugged. “I’m not without friends of influence.”

“That always helps.”

“I don’t understand your line of questioning,” she said. “What is it you really want to know?”

“I suppose I’m wondering if you and I could have a more permanent relationship—”

“In New York?”

“Of course.”

“Why ‘of course’? Why couldn’t you move to London?”

“Because I couldn’t get a job as a barrister anywhere in England, and I doubt if they’d offer me anything at Scotland Yard. And those are the only things I know how to do. I suppose what I really want to know is if you could be happy in an existence where secrets and routine violence—even murder—don’t play a part.”

“Is that how you see my life?”

“Isn’t it how you see it? Don’t you ever think about what your work does to you as a human being?”

“There is a long tradition in my family, going back at least five hundred years, of service to one’s country.”

“No matter what one’s country asks one to do?”

“I have always been equal to what my country has asked of me.”

“That’s what worries me,” Stone said.

“That I’m a loyalist?”

“That, where your country is concerned, you’re capable of anything.”

She blinked at him. “What are you talking about?”

“Marie-Thérèse’s parents weren’t killed by accident, were they?”

“I told you they were. I was there.”

“The target was her mother. Isn’t that true? Collateral damage didn’t matter.”

Carpenter set down her glass. “Who have you been talking to?”

“Someone who was there.”

“I am the only person still alive who was there.”

“No,” Stone said, “you’re not.”

She stared at him for a long moment, her face expressionless. “Good God,” she said softly.

Stone said nothing, just looked at her.

“I think you’d better stop lying to me,” he said finally. “It isn’t good for the relationship.”

“How did you find her?”

“I’m a good detective. The NYPD trained me well.”

“We can’t find her, but you could?”

“That seems to be the reality.”

“Did you meet her face to face?”

“Yes, but it wasn’t the face we saw at the Nineteenth Precinct. I don’t know how she changes, but she does.”

“Do you have any idea how dangerous that was?”

“It seemed to me more dangerous not to meet with her. She knew who I was and that I had played a part. . .”

“Yes, I suppose that’s true. Where did you meet her?”

“In a bar. I’m afraid I can’t tell you any more than that.”

“Why not?”

“Because, before she would talk to me, she insisted on paying me a retainer. I’m now her attorney.”

“That was very clever of her. Can you contact her again?”

“Perhaps.”

“You’re not sure?”

“No.”

Carpenter pushed back from the table. “I have to leave,” she said.

“To report to your superiors?”

“Thank you for the champagne,” she said. Then she got up and left.