Mrs. John Doe

Chapter 4

Fog. Nora gradually became aware of it as she stood on the corner, half a block north of her hotel. A thin, cold vapor had arrived in the street, not yet a full-on particular but growing by the minute. No matter, she decided; she was still wearing the beige trench coat. She buttoned and belted it over her black blouse, skirt, and high-heeled boots, her informal version of widow’s weeds, grimly acknowledging the humor of the coat’s label: LONDON FOG.

Something had just happened, of course, something odd and possibly momentous, but Nora could see no point in standing here trying to figure it out. Better to move, and move quickly. London’s most famous meteorological peculiarity was never shy, and this light mist could soon become a swirling wall of condensation, freezing everything in its path. She wanted to walk before she had to go indoors.

She hurried down the sidewalk, past the Byron and on to the corner of Montague Place. She turned left and proceeded east, glancing over at the imposing British Museum as she passed by it. She came into Russell Square, crossed the street, and moved briskly through the wrought-iron gates at the southwest corner of her favorite spot in London. Only then, when she was inside, did she slacken her pace. She shifted her inner gears, slowing down to take in the beauty around her.

Russell Square Gardens was a lovely environment, wide green lawns dotted with tall chestnut trees, a lime grove, and lush flower borders teeming with many vivid colors. The diagonal sidewalks were lined with benches and iron lampposts, and they led from the four corners to the geographical center of the park, a round plaza ringed with more benches where a circular, ground-level fountain sent water gushing up into the air from the pavement itself. The square reminded her of Washington Square Park in New York City, so well remembered from her college days at NYU, and it was every bit as beautiful. That was one reason why she loved it here.

She moved forward along the path, clutching her collar in the growing mist as she arrived at the central plaza. She reached into her voluminous shoulder bag, where she kept her standbys: sunglasses, gloves, a foldaway umbrella, a black wool scarf, and a floppy, oversize black wool beret her daughter had given her years ago. The last two items would be useful now. She wound the thick scarf around her neck and tucked her damp hair up into the beret, setting it at a jaunty angle on the right side of her head.

There weren’t many people here at this hour, in this weather: a small elderly lady with a blue-rinsed permanent and a brown tweed suit that made her look like Miss Marple, walking an enormous brown dog; a teenage boy and girl wandering hand in hand over by the trees; a tall young man in jeans, sneakers, and a gray sweatshirt emblazoned with the crest of Manchester United, murmuring into a cellphone as he jogged in place a little way from her. Two tiny, identical red-haired girls in green coats ran around the burbling circle of the fountain, laughing, admonished not to get too close to the water by a heavyset, middle-aged black woman on a nearby bench. The little park café was closed for the night, and a few solitary figures ambled here and there in the hazy distance.

The children’s activity and the low conversation of the football fan were the only sounds here; even the traffic circling the square was muted by the trees and obscured by the strengthening fog. Soon, the edges of the park and the remote buildings would be invisible from where she stood. It was so peaceful here, almost as though she were standing in a country lane and not in the center of one of the world’s largest cities. Now, at last, she could be alone and think.

She’d only seen one dead body before today, and that had been her father. She had been twenty-two, an only child fresh from the NYU drama department and just beginning to get work in the theater, when Alec Hughes succumbed to pancreatic cancer. Her mother insisted on the full Irish Catholic send-off, complete with a viewing of the open casket at the inevitable wake. Nora stared down into the coffin in the living room of her family home in Port Jefferson, barely recognizing the shrunken, gray man inside it. She promised herself that she’d never do this to anyone, no matter their religious background, no matter their wishes. The Church frowned on cremation, but Nora had never been devout, much to her parents’ chagrin. She decided on cremation for herself and hers. Her mother, dead just four years after her husband, was the only exception. Nora’s two maternal aunts handled everything-another Irish blowout, with rambling speeches and drunken keening-but this time they mercifully kept the coffin shut.

With both parents gone, Nora threw herself into her work, winning a part in the national tour of a hit Broadway play. She was performing at the Kennedy Center in Washington, six months after her mother’s death, when she met Jeffrey Baron. He was part of a group, a charity function some senator’s wife had arranged that involved a performance of the play followed by a dinner party for four hundred at the Roof Terrace. The cast was invited, and she was seated next to the tall, handsome man from Connecticut who said he was in electronics. He also said he’d enjoyed her performance in this, the first professional play he’d ever seen. She liked his brown eyes and his hearty laugh. Before dinner was over, they discovered they had the Sound in common. He was from a little town near Bridgeport, directly across Long Island Sound from her hometown.

He drove her home that night, to the sublet in Georgetown where she was staying, and the next day he invited her out. He came to see the play again, twice. By the time they were married, she was already pregnant with Dana, and Jeff had told her the truth about himself; he wasn’t merely in electronics. They would live somewhere on the Sound, and they both loved travel and crossword puzzles and word games. He gave her a pet name, coined on their wedding day, when he first saw her married name written down. From that day on, he called her-

Pal.

That big man, Bill Howard’s chauffeur. Three whispered words: Be careful, Pal. How could a complete stranger possibly know about that? The car accident with no police record. The death of “John Doe.” The body lying in the morgue with a long history of health problems. A gold locket on a gold chain: Always keep me close to your heart…

Nora Baron stood before the fountain in Russell Square Gardens, Bloomsbury, Camden, London, England. She stared out at the dark lawn, not seeing it, possessed by a sudden panic. The fog had arrived in earnest now, swirling before her eyes, the icy tendrils clinging to everything. She could feel it, cold against her face. The trees, the lawns, the great Victorian hotel across that road, the great museum across that other one; she couldn’t see them now. She was aware only of a rhythmic pounding sound somewhere behind her, and it seemed to be coming closer.

She blinked and looked around her, peering through the mist. The sweet old lady with the big dog; the teenage lovers; the jogger with the phone; the nanny getting up from the bench, calling the little twin girls to her as she buttoned her coat. It was time to go. It was time to take these children home while they could still see their hands in front of their faces. It was time to be careful.

Careful…

Pal…

Be careful, Pal. Be careful, Pal. Be-

Nora heard the little girl scream a split second before she felt the hard impact in the center of her back. Then she was lurching forward, flying through the air, through the blinding fog, and crashing heavily down onto the wet pavement.