Mrs. John Doe

Chapter 33

Few neighborhoods in London have detached, stand-alone houses with front and back gardens and garages, mainly because few people can afford them. Bill Howard and his wife were among the exceptions. They weren’t part of what Americans would refer to as the one percent, but they were well-off by any standard. Bill was highly paid for his services to the Crown, and Vivian was the only child of Maxfield Gordon, a prominent real estate developer in the postwar years. He’d left his widow more than enough, and she’d left Vivian an impressive dowry and this house on a quiet, tree-lined street in the northwest sector of St. John’s Wood, well removed from the bustle and noise downtown. This area was so isolated and exclusive as to be practically a suburb, London’s equivalent of Larchmont, Chevy Chase, or Beverly Hills.

When Vivian and Bill split up, there was no question of her leaving her own home. Bill had a flat in another part of the city now, not to mention his new country house in Sedgeford, and Vivian was still here, aided by her longtime housekeeper, the estimable Claudia Bellini, and Claudia’s husband, who tended the grounds. Nora had dined here many times over the years but always when the couple had been together, and Jeff had been with her. Coming here alone felt distinctly odd-and tonight, under the circumstances, it felt considerably more than odd.

It was the third house in from the corner, an attractive, two-story residence with a driveway beside the front garden leading to the garage. Nora stood at the corner, but she wasn’t looking at the house. She was studying the entire scene: the other houses, the sidewalks, and the parked cars that lined the street on both sides. All the cars she could see from here were empty, as far as she could tell, and there were no pedestrians in sight. It was nearly dark now, and the streetlamps had just come on. Everything was quiet, and no stranger lurked anywhere, watching Vivian’s house. When Nora was certain of this, she hurried down the street and up the walk to the front door. She rang the bell at exactly seven o’clock by her watch. The door opened almost immediately.

“Hello, darling! You’re right on time,” Vivian sang as they embraced. Tonight she was a vision in a red silk blouse and harem pants that could only be from Stella McCartney, and Nora felt comparatively dowdy in her black denim pantsuit and the cheap coat she’d bought in the French mall yesterday. Well, at least she wasn’t wearing that awful wig.

If Vivian noticed the coat, she was too well-bred to mention it. “Come in, come in! Claudia’s in the kitchen, cooking up a storm, and I just made a batch of martinis. Bill’s on his way; he should be here soon.”

She ushered Nora into the front hall. Straight ahead was the curved staircase to the second floor, with the kitchen beyond it. The living room-or drawing room, in Viv’s lingo-was through an archway on the right, and the dining room was behind it through another archway, next to the kitchen, looking out on the back garden. Upstairs were two bedroom suites and a den that Bill had used as an office. Nora liked this house-good-sized without being ostentatious, if a tad conservative. Vivian had decorated it to accommodate her husband’s professional standing, in sober creams and beiges and earth tones for their frequent entertaining of government VIPs.

When Nora followed her friend through the archway into the drawing room, she stopped short, staring. Then she smiled, gazing around. The oatmeal and taupe and burnt umber had vanished. The new drapes at the big front windows were a virtual garden of flowers, pink and orange and yellow, and the austere beige carpeting had been replaced by a beautiful shade of pale green. The couches and armchairs were new, lighter and more colorful than their predecessors, in similar floral prints. Huge bowls and vases of actual flowers stood on the coffee table and end tables. The standard-issue hunting scenes on the formerly cream, now pale green walls had been replaced by flower-themed watercolors.

“Wow!” Nora whispered.

Vivian laughed. “Wait till you see the rest of the place! I just decided, what the hell? I don’t have to live in a men’s club anymore, entertaining all those crotchety old MPs and blue-rinsed dames. For the first time in my life, my house can reflect me, you know, the woman who actually lives here. You should have seen Bill’s face the first time he saw all this! Priceless!”

“I love it!” Nora said. “I really do, Viv. It’s so you!”

“I knew you would, darling. It’s definitely dramatic, and you’re an actress. And it was you who inspired it-your living room with all those flowers, and that marvelous den you did up for Je-” Vivian stopped short, nearly choking back the word. “Oh, my dear, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have…”

Nora blinked, remembering. Of course. Vivian still thought Jeff was actually dead. Her soon-to-be ex-husband hadn’t let her in on the secret, and it wasn’t Nora’s place to do it. For now, Jeff was officially deceased, and no one could know otherwise-certainly not Viv, who didn’t always think before she spoke. She’d learn the truth soon enough.

“It’s quite all right, Viv,” Nora said now. “I’m-I’m glad you’re moving forward like this.”

“We’re both moving forward,” Vivian said. “Remember that.”

Nora smiled and nodded, but she was saved from having to reply by the arrival of Claudia Bellini from the kitchen.

“Hello, Mrs. Baron,” the housekeeper said. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you, Claudia.” Nora didn’t cringe this time; she didn’t even wince as she acknowledged the condolence. She was getting used to being a widow-and to lying as easily as she drew breath. All the world’s a stage. “How are Tony and Vittorio?” She secretly congratulated herself for remembering the names of Claudia’s husband and son, whom she’d met, briefly, years ago.

“They’re just fine, thank you. Vito is at Cambridge now, and he’s doing splendid-he’s planning to read law!”

“That’s marvelous,” Nora said, and she meant it. Vittorio was the first member of Claudia’s family to attend college, thanks mainly to her employers. Bill and Vivian had overseen Vito’s entire education, and they’d eventually secured a place for him at Bill’s alma mater. His mother couldn’t be more proud; she was beaming.

“Let me take your coat,” she said now. She helped Nora remove it and carried it over to the closet in the entry hallway beside the door to the downstairs bathroom.

“Oh, the powder room isn’t ready yet,” Viv said. “They’re still remodeling, and there are no fixtures in it at the moment. You can use my loo tonight.”

Nora nodded, remembering the big master suite at the top of the stairs, with walk-in closets and a large bathroom. At the far end of the upstairs hall was a guest room that Jeff and Nora had stayed in once, years ago. Those rooms had been decorated in shades of beige and brown when Bill lived here, and she wondered what Viv had done with them. More flowers, probably.

“Supper will be served in one hour,” the housekeeper said to her employer. “Oh-and I’ve run out of cream, so I rang Bessie at Garson’s, and she’s sending her youngest boy over with it. Shane, his name is. I’ve left the money for it on the front hall table by the door. If I don’t hear the bell from the kitchen, would you-?”

“Of course,” Vivian said.

Vivian led Nora back into the living room, and Claudia returned to her cooking. The faint, tantalizing aroma of garlic and red sauce wafted briefly through the floral environment as the swinging door to the kitchen opened and closed. Nora sat on a couch, dropping her purse beside her, while her hostess sank into the matching couch at the other side of the coffee table. The big armchair between the couches-once a deep cocoa, now a riot of roses and violets-had always been Bill Howard’s designated place, and Nora assumed it was waiting for him.

Thinking of Bill Howard brought back the immediacy of her situation, and she felt a tightening, a clenching in her stomach, even as she smiled at her friend. The picture window was behind Vivian, and Nora gazed past her, out at the dark landscape beyond the glass, bracing herself for the inevitable flash of headlights as Bill’s car turned into the driveway. Her hand rested on the Coach bag, and she was acutely aware of the little silver object at the bottom of it, wrapped in her woolen shawl. What would she do when he arrived?

Viv’s bright red lips were moving, and Nora forced herself to follow the conversation. She tried to focus on her friend, smiling sympathetically, wondering if she would be forced to hold this woman’s husband at gunpoint-or worse-right here in her newly redecorated home…

“…very depressed at first, right after Bill moved out. I imagined him with this Solange, this lovely young creature, and I just couldn’t get out of bed in the morning. But I recovered. One day, I looked round this house and decided to change it. I simply went ahead and changed everything-Oh!”

Nora had been expecting headlights on the picture window, so when Bill Howard suddenly materialized in the archway, she was just as surprised as Vivian. He was impeccably dressed, as always, in a dark suit and tie. The moment she saw him standing there, smiling, Nora knew something was wrong. She recognized that particular facial expression; she’d produced it herself many times, onstage and on camera. His lips curved upward, but nothing else joined in. His eyes were watchful, wary. Her first, horrible thought was that she had been found out, that he knew she was onto him. But his first words and actions banished that thought from her mind, replacing it with fresh alarm.

“Hello, ladies,” he said. “Viv, I know I’m not the master here anymore, but please bear with me.”

He moved swiftly to the picture window, reaching for the cord and pulling the drapes shut. Then he switched off the standing lamp beside the window and came back across the room. He frowned at the garish armchair before sitting in it, pulling a phone from a jacket pocket and glancing at the screen, apparently checking a text or readout. Then he sat back in the chair, phone in hand, looking from one woman to the other.

“I’m not sure if I can stay for dinner,” he said. “I’ve been trying to reach Craig Elder, but he’s not answering his mobile at the moment. Nora, there’s no word on that matter we were discussing the other day, but I may have some news for you soon. We’ll have to let Viv in on our little secret too.”

“Secret?” Vivian said. “What secret? Bill, what are you talking about?”

Nora, who understood him immediately, was more confused than her friend. She’d been bracing herself to accuse this man of being Mr. X, the mastermind behind Jeff’s disappearance, of selling out his country-of selling out the entire Western world, no less-but now, looking at him, she wasn’t at all certain of it. Bill Howard had lost his usual composure; he was clearly agitated.

“I can’t stay long,” he said. “I have to get back to my office. I came here in an unmarked car, but I’m pretty sure I was followed. I think I shook them off near Hyde Park, and I parked two streets away from here and came through the back garden-poor Claudia had a turn when I tapped on the kitchen door-but you can never be too careful.”

Nora stared at him, wondering if he was making all this up on the spot, but Vivian was clearly puzzled.

“Why would someone be following you?” she asked her husband. “What is it, Bill? What’s happened?”

He glanced over at her before leaning toward Nora. His voice was barely more than a whisper.

“I think we may have found our arms dealer.”