The Color of Night

CHAPTER 42

Howard walked away toward the Audley gates. From years of experience, Strand knew that he wouldn’t look back. The meeting had left Strand drained and anxious. He couldn’t decide whether Howard had been entirely satisfied with Strand’s story or whether he harbored a lingering suspicion that Strand was setting him up.

Leaving Mount Street Gardens, Strand made his way through Mayfair to Piccadilly, emerging on Berkeley Street just down from the Green Park underground station.

He rode the underground all the way to Knightsbridge and then all the way back to Piccadilly Circus. He spent some time milling in the crowds there and then walked up the Burlington Arcade, where he drifted in and out of the shops. He worked his way back to Half Moon Street, which he followed to Curzon, stopping in at George Trumper to buy a tube of sandalwood shaving cream.

He turned up Curzon, stopping to look at the film posters on the front of the Curzon Cinema before turning back and following Curzon to Fitzmaurice Place. Half a dozen telephone booths lined the sidewalk just at the Charles Street corner. He stepped into the second one from the right, closed the door, and checked his watch. For seven minutes he stared at the poster advertisements that prostitutes had stuck to the walls of the booth, exposing their wares in black-and-white photographs of steamy vamping.

At precisely five o’clock, the telephone rang. He picked up the receiver.

“You’re going to like this place, Harry,” Mara said, giving him the address. “I’ll leave the front door open.”

The town house was close. He turned into Charles Street and started up the hill. Just past Queen Street he turned into Chesterfield Hill, and there, nearly halfway up the first block and across the street, was the red-brick Edwardian town house, newly refurbished, that Mara had leased.

He crossed the street and was pleased to see the “Available” sign still attached to the wrought-iron fence that enclosed the front garden. Upon entering the gate, he walked up the steps and let himself in through the moss green front door, shiny with layers of paint.

When he closed the door behind him the hollow sound echoed through the unfurnished rooms, which smelled of fresh paint and wallpaper paste. On the second floor a large reception fronted the street. To the left was a broad bay window overlooking Chesterfield Hill. Centered between the arms of the windows was a box spring and mattress on the floor, scattered with plastic packets of new linen. Mara walked in from the kitchen, drying her hands on a dish towel.

“Welcome home,” she said.

At the other end of the long room, on the wall opposite the bay window, were stacked painters’ supplies, five-gallon paint buckets and painters’ canvases and scaffolding boards and ladders.

“I convinced the estate agent to leave everything as it was,” Mara explained.

“The ‘Available’ sign is a good touch.”

“Yeah, I asked him to leave it for another week. He thought it was an odd request but shrugged it off.”

Mara had scavenged together the rough scaffolding boards and paint buckets to make a long table, which she covered with the paint-flecked canvas dropcloths. There was a telephone on the table and books stacked beside it, and a little farther over sat one of the laptops, the screen already lighted. A cobalt blue vase with fresh flowers in it sat on the far end of the table.

“The telephone was a lucky stroke,” she said. “The estate agency had it installed to communicate with the workers who were doing the refurbishing work. We just transferred over the names.”

Strand looked at her and smiled. “You’re right, this is perfect. It’s close to everything.”

“I got it fairly early this morning,” she said, walking over to him, folding her arms, the dish towel dangling from her hands. “It was the third place they showed me. I really had to fork over the money to speed up the paperwork”-she turned and gestured to the bed-“paid extra to get the furniture store to have the bedding delivered within a few hours. It’s taken all day.”

Strand walked over to the bed and tossed the shaving cream on the new mattress, then took off his coat and tossed it down, too.

Mara waited, her arms folded, her weight shifted to one leg. “Well, how did it go?” she asked.

“I think it’s going to work. He’s taking it to Schrade. He’s supposed to get back to me as soon as possible.”

“Then you feel good about it?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

Mara thought a moment. “God, it’s just so hard to believe what Howard’s doing. You’d think the FIS would have some suspicions about him.”

“I just hope he’s swallowing this, that they both swallow it. Of course, Schrade’s psychology is in our favor. He wants to believe. Greed’s giving us a leg up here. None of them can stand the thought that the money’s really out of reach. The longer we can make them believe it isn’t, the longer Schrade’s going to put off coming after us.”

Strand looked around. “We’re going to need something for the windows.” He rolled his head from side to side, trying to limber up his stiff neck as he unbuttoned his collar and loosened his tie.

“I’ve got extra sheets for that. Do you think Howard believed you when you told him you’d sent me away?”

“I didn’t get a feeling that he was suspicious,” Strand said.

Mara went over to the bed and began taking everything off it.

“I was just as concerned that he not get the impression I was staying in London,” Strand said. “I tried to make him think this was just a stopover for me. But I don’t know…”

Mara opened the packets of new sheets and shook them out. Strand went over to help her.

“While the estate agent was drawing up the papers for me to sign,” Mara said, putting down the first sheet, “I took a cab to a Grosvenor Square. The agent recommended a solicitor there. I got the papers authorized that the Houston bank wanted in order to release the drawings and faxed them to Houston. About an hour ago I called them and they said everything was in order. They’d already called in the fine arts museum conservator to do the packing. I gave them Leon Gautier’s name and address on the Rue des Saints-Peres. They’ll get the drawings on a flight tonight. I’m to call him tomorrow for the flight number and arrival time in Paris.”

They tucked in the last sheet, and Mara threw a bedspread over the bed. Strand straightened it from his side and then sat on the bed while Mara put pillowcases on the pillows.

“When is Bill going to get back to you?” she asked.

Strand shook his head. “I don’t know. I told him I was leaving London tonight. After that it would be more difficult to arrange a meeting.”

“So we just wait.”

“That’s right.”

Mara looked out the window. It was near dusk, and street lamps were coming on all over Mayfair. The room was growing gloomy as the light outside slipped away.

“Come on,” she said, “we’ve got to put up one of these sheets before we turn on the lights.”

Using the painters’ ladder and thumbtacks-Mara had overlooked nothing-they tacked the top of one of the sheets to the ceiling, following the angle of the bay window, hanging the sheet a couple of feet away from the windows themselves. This created a luminous effect, softening and expanding the glow from the street lamps.

“I hate to say this,” Mara said as Strand was putting away the ladder, “but I’m starving. My day was frantic, and I skipped lunch. I’ve got to have something to eat.”

They went around the corner to Charles Street and walked to the top of the hill to a little pub that served meals in two rooms in the back. The rooms were small and intimate, and most of the other tables were occupied, which meant that they had no opportunity to talk about their plans. So the dinner was perfunctory, and by the time they had finished and pushed their way through the pub crowd to the front door and the yard outside, it was well after dark.

As Mara took his arm and they started down the hill, Strand realized the weather was beginning to change. Though it was still warm, the air was growing heavy, and the night sky was gauzy with humidity, hazing the street lamps in the distance.

“I’ve got to leave for a couple of hours,” Strand said.

“Really? To do what?”

“I’d rather explain it to you after I get back,” he demurred. “It’ll be easier that way.”

She said nothing for a moment, then she stopped and turned to him.

“Look, Harry,” she said, “I want to remind you of something: You are not running an intelligence operation here. We’re dealing with our lives now, and conceivably, mine is more at risk than yours at this point. So quit acting like you’re a case officer. Stop compartmentalizing. If you don’t think I have every right to all the information you have, to all the planning you’re doing, to all the possibilities that affect me directly, then you’d better explain to me why that is. Either you trust me all the way on this, Harry, or you don’t. If you don’t, I may want to rethink what the hell I’m taking all these risks for.”

She was standing with her back to the brick row houses along the sidewalk, the spill of a street lamp softly lighting her stern expression.

“It’s not a matter of trust, Mara. Not trust.” He hesitated. “You’re right about my reserve, and I know it. Old habits. I’m sorry. But give me a couple of hours here… just a couple of hours.”