Patriot

CHAPTER 37

You look exhausted, darling,” Lady Mars said to Ambrose, taking shelter from the rain under the porte cochere of their Bermuda home, Shadowlands.

This upon the chief inspector’s late arrival in the midst of a raging tropical rainstorm. Sheets of rain and ragged lightning lit the sky as a very bedraggled Ambrose arrived on his doorstep soaked to the skin. He felt as if he were washing up ashore like some poor drowned mutt.

Diana opened wide her slender alabaster arms, and her husband dove down into their welcome like a man drowning. He was extraordinarily tired, actually. The interminable transoceanic flight from Nice, France, to JFK on British Airways, the bloody racing between terminals to make the last connection to Bermuda, plus all the indignities and myriad miseries of modern commercial jet travel had worn him down to the bare nubs. For dinner, United had served a small cardboard box full of stale crackers called “Tapas” in an attempt at humor.

Not to mention the intense hours he’d devoted to this latest mystery. The one he called, as he had now come to think of it, “Who’s Killing the Great Spies of Europe?” The facts, skimpy as they were at this point, were straightforward enough.

The mysterious woman who’d killed the Russian KGB second-in-command, and the woman who’d killed the CIA director’s housekeeper during a botched plot to assassinate Brick Kelly shared the same DNA. So. What on earth was the joint motive? Whatever did those two victims possibly have in common? Didn’t make a scintilla of sense, as he’d told Hawke on their way to the Nice airport early that morning.

None at all. Absurd on the face of it. Still, Hawke was counting on him to solve this thing and by God he was going to do it.

His CIA informant within the hallowed halls of Langley had promised to keep him abreast of their ongoing investigation into the murder at the Kelly horse farm in Virginia. But, so far at least, he’d not heard peep one. Ah, well, he was too tired to dwell on anything anymore. Tomorrow he’d take his English newspapers down to his semipermanent chaise longue on the pink sands of his beach and—

“I missed you so, you old plodder,” Diana said, squeezing him around his waist.

“I do not plod, I streak.”

“Streak inside, will you, oh mighty Demon of Deduction? You look like you need a hot cuppa, boy.”

“Oh, I sorely do, Mother mine.”

He paused inside the door to gather her up into his arms. He nuzzled her warm cheeks, inhaling the clean sweetness of her neck and heavenly scent of her glorious mane of chestnut hair, and privately declared himself among the very luckiest of men.

“God, it’s good to be safe home to my favorite Martian,” he said, knowing how she delighted in his use of the old moniker he’d had for Lady Mars since the first days of their courtship many years ago.

Diana led him down the hall and into the library and there kissed him for a very long time on the lips, pushing him down into his cushy leather armchair by the fireside. A scotch magically appeared in his hand. His beloved meerschaum pipe and his leather tobacco pouch miraculously appeared, too, and—

His wife put her hand on his weary shoulder and said, “And how was our Mr. Putin behaving himself this time? Did he take his shirt off and strut about for you and his lordship? Full of the usual blood and thunder?”

“Ah, yes, indeed he did, metaphorically, at least. It was a sight to behold, I’ll tell you that much. He thinks he’s going to conquer the world, that one does. He’s got the bottle to think we won’t raise a hand to stop him. That no one will!”

“He’s a bad boy, isn’t he, darling?”

“A bad boy who certainly underestimates the resolve of Britain. The prime minister and Parliament can only be pushed so far. Putin just doesn’t seem to understand the fact that we will not put up with much more of this bellicosity and…”

Ambrose yawned mightily and let his eyes wander over to the crackling fire, trying to let go his old worries about Hawke’s sentimental belief in false friendships, something that might one day be the death of him.

His wife lowered herself onto his lap and began stroking his chestnut hair. Thinning a bit on the top but still there, by heaven, sixty years young and counting.

Half an hour later Ambrose and his wife were just finishing their supper in the dining room when someone pushed in from the kitchen and said to Diana, “Sorry to disturb you, Madame. There’s someone on the line who wants to speak with Mr. Congreve.”

“Who is it?”

“Would not say, sir. Said he was calling on a secure line. He said to tell him it was his friend from the farm in Virginia.” She did so.

“Please tell my friend I shall be right with him, won’t you? I’ll take it up in my office,” Congreve said, getting to his feet and placing his napkin upon the table.

“Who on earth is that?” Diana said.

“Business, darling. My new secret contact inside the CIA at Langley, Virginia. This shouldn’t take too long, dear. Shall I join you for coffee back in the library?”

“Of course, Ambrose. Take your time. These secure line chats do tend to stretch out a bit.”

“Congreve,” Ambrose said, picking up the phone in his office, the salt-smudged windows overlooking the waves crashing in the dark below.

“Sorry to call you so late.”

“Not at all, not at all. What have you got for me?”

“We’ve been working the suspect who killed Director Kelly’s housekeeper. We’ve come up with a name. Not a last name, unfortunately; she had a list of aliases as long as your arm. But we do have a first name she’s used in multiple assassinations for you. We got it both from the director himself and the bartender at the Bristol Hotel in Paris where the hit on Harding Torrance occurred. He was the station chief in Paris, remember?”

“Certainly do. He came up with the same first name, did he, this bartender of yours?”

“He did. Said she used the name ‘Crystal’ while she was chatting up Torrance at the bar. And Crystal’s the name the killer gave the director when he came home to find her at his farm. So, same name used on both occasions.”

“Crystal? I’ve heard that name before. Not the kind of name you forget. Where the hell was it? Let me think. I know — wait a second — yes, it was Pelham Grenville who used it. That’s right. Pelham.”

“And who is he?”

“Alex Hawke’s eighty-year-old butler. And one of my very closest friends, by the way.”

“What was the context, sir?”

“He was recounting a story about a woman Hawke had asked to dine aboard his yacht at the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club. A week or so ago, I believe. Pelham didn’t like her on sight. He said, ‘One of us smelled like a tart’s handkerchief. And it was not I.’”

“Don’t tell me her name was Crystal, too.”

“It certainly was. Hawke pooh-poohed any notion of villainy at the time, but Pelham was absolutely certain the woman meant to do him harm. And Pelham’s instincts are always reliable, even at his relatively advanced age.”

“This is good news, sir. We can now triangulate her movements. And we move closer to motive. She kills a KGB officer, she attempts to kill the head of CIA, and she takes a failed shot at an MI6 officer in Bermuda into the bargain. Who the hell wants to kill everybody? May I have permission to speak with Lord Hawke about the Bermuda incident?”

“Certainly. I’ll give him your name and tell him to expect your call.”

“Any woman who would deliberately run down a man’s dog in the street is capable of just about anything. I’d say your friend Lord Hawke dodged a rather high-caliber bullet that evening in Bermuda.”

“Funny. Those are almost the precise words my friend Pelham used.”