Mrs. John Doe

Chapter 39

She woke in darkness, and her first instinct was to panic. She sat up in the car seat, blinking around, aware that they were stopped and the driver’s seat beside her was empty. She was alone in the car. Beyond the windshield and side windows, she could see nothing: It was pitch black, everywhere.

A thrill of terror rose up in her, only to be quelled a moment later. She heard a rhythmic scraping sound from behind the car, and she felt a slight vibration. She twisted around in the seat to see a small light bobbing up and down just behind the rear window, and she could just make out the dim glow of Craig’s face. He was holding a penlight in his mouth while he did something with his hands.

Nora yanked off her seatbelt and got out of the car, nearly colliding with the side of another vehicle parked beside it, a low-slung sports car. She blinked in the gloom, taking in the dark shapes of other cars in a line beyond the one in front of her. They were parked in a garage, the sort she’d seen on plenty of London side streets: long, low buildings that accommodated anywhere from three to ten cars in a row, each with its own door. Perhaps they were in a mews or a gated, private street. Wherever they were, it was very quiet. She couldn’t hear a sound of traffic or people, any life at all, beyond the walls and doors that surrounded them.

Craig took the penlight out of his mouth. “Sorry if I woke you,” he said, rising from his kneeling position behind the car. He switched the light off, plunging them into total darkness.

Nora blinked. “Where are we?”

“Just a stop,” he said, joining her at the side of the car. “A necessary pit stop. This Nissan”-he gestured at the sports car-“belongs to someone I know. I’m borrowing her number plates for a bit. She’s in Australia at the moment; she won’t miss them. But that man back there probably wrote down our number, so…”

Nora’s eyes were adjusting to the dark, and now she saw the flat metal objects in his hands. He’d switched the Focus’s license plates for the ones from the Nissan.

“She,” Nora said. “Let me guess: You mentioned two girlfriends, and this is the other one, right?”

He went over and crouched down, grasping the handle to raise the garage door behind the Focus. “Aye, Sandra. She’s a flight attendant, and she’s off in Sydney today. I sometimes use this parking space next to hers when I’m, um, visiting her. I wish we could stay here-her place is just nearby-but her flatmate is home, far as I know, and she’s probably heard the news by now. It wouldn’t do. We’d best get out of town.”

He slid the door up and headed for the car. Nora waited while he backed out onto the lane and then followed him outside, pulling down the door before rejoining him in the car. She brushed the raindrops from her hair and face as they drove out of the lane onto a tree-lined city street.

The clock on the dash read 11:03. She’d only slept for a few minutes, and now she realized how weary she was. Her anxiety, her constant need to find Jeff as the hours ticked down, had totally worn her out, and she hadn’t eaten since-when? She couldn’t remember. Oh yes, breakfast at the Byron Hotel. Coffee and a cookie at Jeff’s place. Then she’d had those gin martinis at Vivian’s and thrown up everything in her stomach. A glass of brandy and half a cup of tea at the pub; the shortbread had gone untouched with the jarring news on the television and their quick getaway. She was tired and hungry, and she’d killed a man, and she was sick with worry. Three o’clock tomorrow afternoon. Sixteen hours…

As though reading her thoughts, Craig said, “We can’t do anything for Mr. Baron at the moment, and we won’t be able to do anything, period, if we don’t eat something and sleep for a while. I know a place, an inn off the motorway not far from London. It’s what you Americans would call a ‘no-tell motel,’ and thanks for not asking how I’m acquainted with it. But they take cash and ask no questions, and there’s a lay-by just down the way. We’ll get food there and take it to the room. Then you can sleep and I can make some calls.”

“Calls?”

“A colleague of Mr. Howard’s, someone he trusts. Trusted. God, I can’t believe what’s happened; I can’t seem to get my mind around it. I can’t believe Mr. Howard is- Well, anyway, I placed a call while you were dozing, and they might have some answers for me by the time we get where we’re going. They’re handling things at the house in St. John’s Wood.”

Nora was about to ask what that meant, what exactly was being handled, but another wave of weariness washed over her. Her head fell back against the seat, and she drifted off again, the steady hum of the tires on the wet road lulling her back into somnolence.

The sound of the car door closing woke her this time, and she sat up and blinked around. The clock on the dash now read 12:11. The rain had let up, at least momentarily. They were stopped in a large parking lot, and Craig was disappearing inside a brightly lit building ahead of her. She looked around the lot until she found the big sign near the motorway behind her: ROAD CHEF.

While she waited, she found the compact in her bag and studied her face, expecting what Jeff always called the cat’s breakfast. Instead, she marveled again at the fact that the bizarre events of the past few days didn’t seem to be taking a particular toll on her looks. The woman in the compact mirror appeared to be as she always was: composed, sedate, almost serene. Tired, definitely, but not haggard. The actress was still onstage, apparently, concealing her inner torment beneath a placid exterior. She smiled grimly to herself, thinking, Once a trouper, always a trouper.

Craig came back with two bags and placed them on the backseat before getting in and driving back out onto the motorway. The scent of fresh coffee filled the car, making her mouth water in anticipation. Minutes later, they left the road again, this time into the lot of a long, shabby-looking, one-story block of a building with pink walls and green doors. The sign by the road had the name OASIS, spelled out in pink letters beside a green palm tree. A dozen rooms but only two cars in the lot-three, now that the Focus had arrived. Craig had chosen well; they were guaranteed privacy here.

She waited outside while Craig went into the glass-fronted office at one end. The old man at the desk was asleep, she noticed, but he stirred himself and handed over a key for cash without even looking up at his guest. Then he went back to sleep.

Room 4 was surprisingly clean and tidy, with a big bed, an armchair, a table with two chairs, and a tiny bathroom with a shower. They sat at the table, and Craig proceeded to lay out roast beef and chicken sandwiches, potato chips, bottled water, a huge can of Foster’s lager, two coffees, and two Cadbury fruit-and-nut bars. They fell on the meal without a word, she taking the water and he the beer. All the food disappeared, and they were on the coffee and chocolate bars when he finally spoke.

“Okay, let me call London, and then I want you to tell me everything you heard in the park again.”

She nodded, picked up her bag, and went into the bathroom. The facilities here were as clean as the room, she was glad to note. She brushed her teeth and washed her face, frowning at her reflection as she recalled her similar actions in Vivian’s upstairs bathroom four hours ago. When she came back out into the room, Craig was just ending his call. He pocketed the phone and reached for his coffee.

“The house is secure,” he said. “The agency sent people there, and the police have been kept out of it. The woman from the grocer’s was told that the dinner was canceled and the cream wasn’t needed. Mr. and Mrs. Howard and Mrs. Bellini have been taken to the morgue. There’s still a call out for me, but I’m not a suspect; the police just want to question me. They know I was in the takeaway at the crucial time, and someone has come forward who saw a large black man running from my building-that would be our friend Andy Gilbert, who’s in the hospital with a head concussion and broken ribs. They’re at his bedside, waiting to arrest him. He’s unconscious but expected to make a full recovery. He’ll probably wake up in Dartmoor, but that’s his lookout.”

“Oh, thank God!” Nora cried. “But can’t they force him to wake up? Drugs or electrodes or whatever? It may be illegal, but I don’t care! That man knows where Jeff is!”

Craig didn’t seem to be at all disturbed by her sudden violent outburst, but he was definitely more realistic about their predicament. “No, Nora. In his condition, any of those things could kill him sooner than he could tell us anything. As little use as he is at the moment, he’d be a lot less useful if he were to die.”

She didn’t like admitting defeat, but what was left of her common sense told her that he was right, and it was galling.

“I suppose,” she muttered at last. “I guess we’ll just have to concentrate on the good news.”

He nodded. “Yes, the good news is, you didn’t kill anyone and I’m not a murder suspect. But the bad news is, we can’t question Andy Gilbert, and we still haven’t found the Frenchman and his henchmen. Hey, that’s pretty good-the Frenchman and his henchmen! I wish I felt like laughing. So, what do you remember from the park? What, exactly, did Andy and this Yussuf character say?”

Nora was still recovering, torn between her relief that Andy Gilbert was alive and her frustration that he was unable to communicate, and it took a few moments for her to organize her thoughts. She repeated the conversation on the park bench as best she could, and he listened intently.

“Okay,” he said when she was finished. “I agree with you; it sounds like Mr. Baron-Jeff-is alive. They were talking about him in the present tense. That’s good, but I’m damned if I know what the rest of it could mean, Copperfield and Laura. The only Copperfield I ever heard of is in the Dickens story, and I don’t know anyone named Laura.”

“That’s what Bill said,” Nora told him, wincing at the memory of the house in St. John’s Wood. She was suddenly overwhelmed by a sense of futility. She slumped over the table, shutting her tired eyes. “What can we do? We’re no closer to a solution than-”

“You get some sleep, Nora,” he said. “Just for a while. I’ll think of something, don’t you worry.”

She nodded and went over to the bed. She sat on it, removing her boots.

“Craig,” she said, “where do we go from here? Back to London? If the police aren’t looking for you anymore-”

“No,” he said, “we’re going to continue heading east. Mr. Baron was taken from King’s Lynn train station, and I don’t think they’d chance taking him too far. He’s probably being held somewhere near there. The Frenchman must be holed up there too. Where else in England would he have gone? And Nassim Gamal and the man and woman who arrived from wherever-”

Nora had to think a moment. “Libya.”

“-Libya. All these people are meeting up someplace, and that place is most likely where they’re holding Mr. Baron. In the morning, you and I are going to Norfolk. My people in London are calling me back with the address of Mr. Howard’s house there, and I figure it’s the best place to start looking.”

Nora took off her jacket and lay down on the bed. Staring up at the ceiling, she said, “We only have a few hours. Three o’clock tomorrow afternoon…”

“Yes, but now we have something we didn’t have before. We have Mr. Howard’s entire agency. They’re all looking for Maurice Dolin, and Mr. Howard’s death has convinced them that Dolin is involved in the arms deal. Our work is finally being acknowledged by the brass. More than acknowledged: They’ve joined us in it. By noon tomorrow, Norfolk will be swarming with field agents. All roads and airports will be monitored, and all big cars and lorries will be stopped and inspected. Dolin and his friends won’t be able to go anywhere. Rest now, Nora. I have a good feeling about this.”

Nora nodded and shut her eyes. The pillow was soft beneath her head. Her last thought before sleep overcame her was that finding Dolin and the weapons was all well and good, but it wouldn’t necessarily save her husband…

She was awakened a moment later, or so she thought. Craig was gently shaking her and calling her name. She sat up on the bed, instantly alert, surprised to see sunlight streaming in through the curtains at the window.

“What?” she gasped. “What time is it?”

“Get up, Nora. It’s 9:15, time to hit the road.”

She looked up at him, at his beaming face, and felt a glimmer of hope. “What’s happened?”

In answer, he reached for her hand and pulled her up from the bed. She stood in her stockinged feet, blinking at him as he held up a notepad before her face. Three words were written there in block letters. The first two words were COWPER FIELD.

“What’s this?” she asked.

Craig was grinning in triumph. “The head office in London called me back just now, and I wrote down what they told me. They were looking for a Copperfield in the Norfolk area, and they found it. A small private airfield near Titchwell Marsh, you know, the bird reserve. Not Copperfield-Cowper Field!”

Nora nodded, then lowered her gaze to the third word: LAURELS. She stared. “Laurels? What’s Laurels?”

Craig Elder’s grin grew even wider. “That’s where we’re going. Not Laura’s-Laurels! It’s the name of Mr. Howard’s country house!”

Nora didn’t even bother to put on her boots. Snatching them up from the floor, she grabbed her coat and bag and marched to the door, with Craig right behind her.