Mrs. John Doe

Chapter 18

Nora was instantly on her feet again. She peered through the door into the lobby, then out the picture window, scanning the terrain for signs of movement. The police, or worse: her pursuer from the gray Citroën. The sudden stab of panic sliced through her, cutting off her oxygen.

“Sit down,” Craig Elder said quietly, and there was a hint of humor in his voice. “You’re not in any immediate danger. There’s no one here but us. I simply meant that I have to get you out of France-but it’s okay to have breakfast first.”

Nora sank back down into her seat once more. She drew in a long breath, studying his face, waiting for the panic to subside before trying to speak. At last she said, “You’d better explain yourself, Mr. Elder. Who, exactly, are you? You obviously work with my husband. Where is he? Where’s Jeff?”

He looked around the otherwise empty room before replying, and now there was no trace of humor. “We don’t know.”

“We?” Nora stared at him. “Who the hell is we?”

He looked her straight in the eye. “His people. My people. Our people. Mr. Howard is my boss, and we’re working with Mr. Baron. But Mr. Baron has disappeared.”

Nora tried to assimilate this. “When?”

“Two nights ago, as near as anyone can make out, sometime after you and I met in Russell Square. Mr. Howard is frantic. Mr. Baron-”

“Stop,” she interjected. “Please stop calling him that. Call him Jeff, okay?”

He studied her a moment. Then he said, “Okay, Jeff has been in hiding ever since the car accident. Mr. Howard-Bill was the only one who knew how to get in touch with him. It turns out that Jeff was hiding in Bill’s new house in Norfolk. Bill called him just before nine that night, after I’d delivered you to the hotel, and he told Jeff all about Russell Square. Bill had just come back from dinner with the minister and his wife, who were in his living room expecting a nightcap, so he told Jeff he’d call back as soon as they went home. He called Jeff again at eleven, and this time Jeff didn’t answer. The people at the place in London where he usually lives-you do know where he stays in London, right?”

Nora nodded. “Yes, it’s an apartment in Soho. I know where it is, but I’ve never been there. When I join him in London, he always stays with me at the Byron. Go on-what about his apartment?”

“They say Jeff hasn’t shown up there; nobody knows where he might be. He left Bill’s house in Sedgeford at nine, right after they spoke on the phone. He drove one of Bill’s cars to King’s Lynn station and bought a ticket to London. The train was at nine-forty. The station’s security cameras showed a man approaching him on the platform just before the train arrived. They had a conversation, and instead of boarding the train, Jeff walked out of the station with him. They found Bill’s car, the one Jeff had borrowed, still parked in the station’s lot.”

Nora calculated. It was nine o’clock now, so Jeff had been missing for nearly thirty-six hours. “The man with him-did any of your people recognize him?”

“No.” He paused, clearly troubled about the next part. “But he was-we think he was-umm…”

“A Paki wanker?” Nora supplied, cringing at her own vulgarity, and the look on his face confirmed it. “But not the one from Russell Square, right?”

“No,” he said. “How did you know that?”

The hostess and an old man in an apron arrived from the kitchen with trays and proceeded to lay out a feast.

Nora said, “They told me to take a streetcar named Desire to one called Cemeteries, and get off at Elysian Fields. I’m visiting my sister and her husband. My brother-in-law is a rough and very crude man, positively prehistoric! Relations can be such a trial sometimes, don’t you agree, Mr.-?”

“Brando,” Craig supplied. “Joe Brando.”

“How do you do, Mr. Brando? I’m Miss Noreen Hughes from Belle Reve, my home in Mississippi. Do you know what Belle Reve means? It means beautiful dream. Isn’t that enchanting?!”

As soon as the servers were gone, Nora said, “I know it couldn’t be the man from the park because he was here the next morning, in Paris, following me. At least I think he was. I didn’t see him, but Jacques Lanier did.”

Craig frowned. “Jacques Lanier- Is that the Frenchman who drove you?”

Nora stared at him. This young man was an assistant, or so she’d gathered, an employee of Bill Howard and her husband, and she didn’t know his rank. He might be another Ray/Roy/Roger, in which case there was every chance that she knew more details than he did at this point.

“Eat,” she said. “We have to go, and who knows when we’ll have time for food again? I just saw the morning news; you’re dining with the most wanted woman in France.”

She managed to eat half her omelet and a slice of toast, despite the numbness in her brain and the queasiness in her stomach. She noted with something approaching humor that her companion wolfed down everything else on the table in the same amount of time. She was beginning to relax a little when the hostess came in with two women who were clearly locals. Nora looked at Craig, and she knew they were both thinking the same thing: These women might have seen the news reports. Nora kept her face averted from their table.

“When we leave here,” he whispered, “you drive and I’ll direct you. My car is not far from here; we’ll switch to that. Paris is our first stop; I have to check on a colleague who isn’t answering her phone. It’s very urgent, or I wouldn’t take time for it now. She’s been silent for two days, ever since she delivered that message to you in London and came to Paris on the late train, so we’re going to her place. Then we’ll decide how to get you out of France.”

Nora remembered the pretty blond girl from the hotel dining room, but she didn’t ask about her now. Instead, she settled the bill and thanked Martine’s daughter for everything. The daughter smiled, clearly assuming that the middle-aged American cougar had just picked up the sexy British backpacker. Nora let the woman believe whatever she chose and hoped she wouldn’t be watching TV in the next few hours.

“Do you have everything from your room?” Craig asked her.

She nearly laughed at that. Everything from her room: A Coach bag and a London Fog raincoat. The clothes on her back. One sinister manila envelope. And a huge, ugly gun. At the moment, they were all she had in the world.

“Yes,” she said, “I’m ready.”

As she and Craig went out into the parking lot, she put on her sunglasses and a scarf, taking in the details around her as she moved: the empty lot; the distant traffic on the autoroute, two small boys sailing by on bicycles, laughing in the sunshine; the strident morning song of an enthusiastic robin in an elm tree beside the building. Nothing else. When they arrived at Jacques’s car, she rolled up her trench coat and placed it on the backseat. Craig dropped his backpack on top of it, hiding it from view. She was opening the front door to get into the driver’s seat when Craig suddenly said, “Look.”

He was on the other side of the car, staring through the picture window into the dining room. Nora followed his gaze. The hostess was back in the room now, once more turning on the wall-mounted television, her pride and joy. On the screen, the earlier report from Pinède was being repeated, complete with film footage and photos.

Without another word, Nora and Craig Elder got into the car and drove away.