‘I’m glad you’re being honest.’
‘How can you tell?’
‘We did this before, remember?’
Parnell didn’t. ‘Is that it?’
‘I think so.’ Her hands were actually moving, scratching at her handbag.
‘Do I get a copy, like before?’
‘It’s the law,’ she reminded him.
‘Like not smoking?’
‘What’s your point?’
‘What’s your verdict?’
Barbara Spacey smiled. ‘That confirms it.’
‘What the hell’s that mean?’
‘What I was deciding.’
‘You ducking my question?’
The psychologist shook her head. ‘You’re not so much of the asshole that you were before.’
For several moments Parnell stared at her across the desk, stunned. At last he said: ‘So, what’s that make me now?’
‘That’s the mystery,’ admitted Barbara Spacey. ‘I don’tknow.’
From behind the dividing glass between the two offices, Kathy Richardson was gesturing towards the telephone. To the psychologist, Parnell said: ‘Maybe you’ll never know. I analyse mysteries. I don’t want to have it happen to me.’
Barbara Spacey smiled. ‘I’ve got to go. I’m dying for a cigarette.’
Kathy Richardson was at the door, waiting to enter, as the psychologist left. The secretary said: ‘The FBI want a meet with you tomorrow, wherever you want. They’re suggesting ten o’clock.’
‘Tell them ten o’clock’s fine. At the Washington field office, to save him coming all the way out here.’
Fifteen
But for the fact that there was no facial resemblance – which didn’t alter Parnell’s immediate impression – the two men confronting him in the FBI’s Washington field office could have been twins. They were both of the same indeterminate height and build and wore their mousy hair short and neatly parted to the left. The spectacles were rimless, the style minimal, their faces unlined by apparent worry or concentration. They didn’t smile, either. The suits were grey, the faint check difficult to detect, the ties matching but subdued red. Parnell guessed the identical pins in their lapels represented a college fraternity. Howard Dingley, his seniority marked by his being behind the uncluttered desk, wore a signet ring on the little finger of his left hand. His partner, David Benton, didn’t. Instead a copper rheumatism-preventing bracelet protruded slightly from beneath the left arm of his double-cuffed shirt.
Dingley said: ‘We’ve got ourselves a very high-profile investigation here, Mr Parnell – high-profile because of what was attempted against you after Ms Lang’s murder. You any idea how lucky you were that Ms Lang made that call?’
‘No, I don’t suppose I have, not fully,’ admitted Parnell. ‘I’m still trying to understand what the hell’s going on.’ There was the familiar buzz-saw sound to Ms.
‘That’s what we’re trying to do. Have to do,’ said Benton.
‘And why you’re the key to everything,’ said Dingley.
Predictably the accents matched, clipped, in-a-hurry East Coast, which Parnell believed he could already isolate – guess at least – from the more leisurely Midwest or West Coast. ‘That’s why I’m here, to do all – everything – I can do to help.’
‘That’s what we wanted to hear,’ said Benton. ‘Tell us about AF209.’
‘There’s nothing to tell,’ said Parnell. ‘I don’t know what it was doing in Rebecca’s bag. Her job was to liaise with Dubette’s overseas subsidiaries. There are a lot. It has to be something to do with that: a flight on which a shipment came in.’
‘A particular flight which both your GCHQ and our National Security Agency picked up while listening to suspected terrorist chatter,’ said Dingley. ‘As well as French security. Which was why it was cancelled four times.’
‘I know. I can’t help you,’ said Parnell.
‘How do you know?’ seized Benton.
‘It was stated in court, when I was released.’
‘What’s your take on it?’ demanded Benton. ‘Your arrest – the way Metro DC police behaved?’
‘You mean, what do I think?’
Dingley nodded.
‘I don’t know,’ stumbled Parnell, awkwardly. ‘I mean, I know what happened, but I don’t know how or why.’
‘Tell us about Ms Lang,’ said Benton.
It came as a shock to Parnell to realize how very little he actually did know about Rebecca. ‘We met at Dubette. Started seeing each other. A relationship began. Her father was American, her mother Italian. Both dead now…’ He stopped, in full recollection. ‘In a car crash. As far as I know, her only relation is an uncle, who owns Giorgio’s Pizzeria on Wisconsin. It’s called Giorgio’s. His name is Giorgio Falcone. She was a graduate of Georgetown University, here in DC. Worked at Johns Hopkins before joining Dubette. She was attached to the division co-ordinating their overseas subsidiary’s laboratories.’
The two FBI agents looked at him, waiting.
‘Yes?’ prompted Dingley.
‘That’s about it,’ said Parnell.
Benton frowned. ‘I thought you were getting married?’
‘We’d decided to live together. I guess with the eventual intention of getting married.’
‘But you hadn’t learned a lot about each other?’ said Dingley.
‘That’s what people live together for, isn’t it? To learn about each other,’ said Parnell. He wasn’t sounding very intelligent, Parnell realized – forthcoming even. Before there could be any further questions, Parnell said: ‘I have thought about things… about that Sunday.’
‘We’d like to hear about it,’ urged Benton.
It began in a disorganized rush but Parnell stopped, correcting his chronology and his calculation of how he and Rebecca must have been under surveillance throughout their visit to Chesapeake. Towards the end of the account, Dingley began nodding in agreement.
Benton said: ‘That’s how we’ve got it figured. And why you’re the key.’
They weren’t making notes, so Parnell assumed the conversation was being recorded, although there was no obvious apparatus.
‘What about Ms Lang’s friends?’ asked Dingley.
‘I never met any.’
‘Not a one?’ demanded Benton, disbelievingly.
‘No,’ said Parnell, knowing how empty it sounded. ‘She didn’t… I don’t know… it never came up.’
‘You’re telling us that Ms Lang didn’t have a single friend, apart from you?’
‘I’m telling you that she never introduced me to anyone. It was a new relationship.’
‘Old enough for you to decide to move in together,’ challenged Dingley.
‘There hadn’t been a chance to meet any of her friends. I work a lot. We were down to about one day a week, mostly a Sunday.’
‘You have dangerous chemicals out at Dubette?’ asked Benton.
‘I’m not attached to the chemical division, but yes, I’d expect there to be dangerous chemicals on the premises.’
