To the Death

Jimmy chuckled, floored by his own amazing humor. But he was taken by the jeweled dagger, taken by its off-key presence and by its suggestion of the Middle East, like something out of Arabian Nights or the Crusades. I don’t care what anyone says, he mused. There’s no daggers in 21st-century Virginia. Guns, yes. Knives, yes. Maybe even bombs. But no daggers. And that’s final.

Jimmy read on. And then he stopped dead. Brockhurst, now where the hell’s that? And where have I heard the name before? It’s too familiar. Someone has mentioned that town before.

He poured himself a cup of hot coffee and tried to concentrate. Then he went to his computer database, hit search mode, and punched in Brockhurst. Nothing. He’d never filed anything that included that name before. He called Jane, and she could not even remember hearing the name.

“See you later,” he said. “Call me if you remember anything.”

“Don’t be late,” she replied, archly.

He summoned up a big computerized wall map and searched for Brockhurst. Found it in the middle of nowhere, and confessed himself more baffled than he was before. Jesus, that place is in the bloody outback, he confirmed to no one in particular. I just can’t remember where or why I ever heard that name before. But I did.

He glanced through the paper to check whether anything truly diabolical had happened, and was glad to see nothing had. Iraq was quiet, Afghanistan was quiet, and Iran for once was behaving itself. The right-wing French president was threatening to quit the European Union, and the Brits were running out of North Sea oil, probably going broke with their massive welfare programs and no resources.

Then he had a brainwave. He called Jane and checked whether they had the embassy to themselves tonight, and, if they had, would she object to asking Arnold and Kathy to join them for dinner?

“Well, Mum and Dad are going out, and we do have the staff on duty. I don’t really have a problem with inviting them. Do you want me to call Kathy?”

“They probably can’t come,” said Jimmy. “But we’ve been to at least three really expensive restaurants with them lately, and it would be a good chance to repay something. You know Arnold always pays.”

“Okay. I’ll call. Will he be all right with Aussie wine?”

“I doubt it. He’ll call it grape juice. If they’re on, call me and I’ll try to do something.”

Brockhurst. The word was revolving around in Jimmy’s mind. He sat quietly and racked his brains. And suddenly, thinking of Arnold’s predictable reaction to Australian Shiraz, it hit him.

“It’s Kathy’s mum! I got it. That’s where she lives. I’ve seen a photograph of her house there. A picture of Kathy with two dogs, a big golden retriever and Kipper. That’s where Kathy goes when she visits.”

Jim was proud of that. He rewarded himself with a fresh cup of coffee and sat for a few moments pondering the world. He picked up the Post and read the story in more detail. Beyond the Pecker, as it were.

And he read with immense awareness of the hunt for the missing barmaid. Dark, beautiful, may have been the victim of a sex attack, covered her tracks and vanished. No other suspects.

He read some other newspapers. He read all the accounts and assessed the many facts that were spread out before him. And as the afternoon wore on, he came up with one question, as he so often did when trying to solve something: what was this Middle East weapon doing rammed into someone’s body, two hundred yards from Kathy’s mum’s house?

Did he like it? Absolutely not. And he cast his mind back to that big story in the Post, three or four months ago, the one that had painted Admiral Morgan as the archenemy of all Middle Eastern terrorist groups.

Here we have a new situation, he pondered. From right out of the wide blue yonder, we have the first murder in a hundred years in the town of Brockhurst, Virginia, international crossroads to nowhere. The crime was committed with an obvious Middle East weapon, a jewel-encrusted dagger, which, from the photos, looks like it belonged to Abdul the Turk or someone.

But it bloody didn’t, did it? It belonged to someone in Brockhurst, visiting or resident. Now what the hell’s a resident of a nice Virginia community doing with something like that? And then stabbing a bloke to death right down the road from the mother-in-law of the jihadists’ number one enemy. Don’t understand it. But I don’t like it.

Jane called back. “Arnold and Kathy can’t come. They’re going to the Bedfords’.”

“Well, at least we tried.”

“And we might have to try harder,” added Jane. “They’re going on vacation in three weeks for most of August. Kipper’s going to Virginia.”

“Okay, see you later,” said Jimmy.

Right now, it seemed to him, the local police detective was certain that this Mystery Woman had probably committed the crime, stabbed this Barker character for whatever reason. And Jimmy was inclined to go along with that, because people do not make really elaborate plans to remain anonymous, cover up every one of their tracks, and then leave the area. Not without they were bloody well up to something.

For Jimmy, that Middle Eastern dagger was critical. Because it had “jihadist” written all over it. He sipped his coffee and frowned. And he decided, then and there, that he would take a drive down to Brockhurst early tomorrow morning, try to get his facts in a row. Right now he would call Arnold, set out his suspicions, and then ask if it would be okay for him and Jane to visit Kathy’s mum while they were in the area.

He would mention to the admiral what a coincidence it was that they were headed down to the Brockhurst area on an entirely separate matter. But he understood with unerring certainty that there was about as much chance of Arnold believing that coincidence as there was of Copernicus joining the Flat Earth Society.

He picked up the phone and dialed the admiral’s number. Arnold answered in person and immediately said how sorry he was they could not join Jimmy and Jane at the embassy. But then he paused, as if sensing that Jimmy was all business tonight.

“What’s on your mind, kid?” he asked, flatly.

“Well, it’s about that murder down in Brockhurst,” he began—

“Guy with the pecker and the dagger?” interrupted Arnold.

“That’s him,” said Jimmy, aware that the admiral’s voice betrayed impatience with a very large capital “I.” “And don’t you think it’s kind of strange that some Arab murderer, a professional by the look of it, should be plying his trade a half mile from Kathy’s mum’s house?”

“Two things, Jimmy. One, the newspapers think the murderer was probably a girl. Two, the fact that the dagger was made in the Middle East does not mean it was being wielded by an Arab. Could have been used by a fucking Eskimo, for chrissakes. Ramshawe, you’re getting paranoid.”

“It’s my job to be paranoid.”

“Jimmy, right now there’s no connection whatsoever between this barmaid and the murder, except they left the hotel within twenty minutes of each other. But let’s say she did kill him, by accident if you like; then, so what? She didn’t kill Kathy’s mom, did she? She didn’t go to live in Brockhurst for that, did she?”

“Then why did she go to live in Brockhurst?”

“Christ knows, old buddy. It’s all a bit far-fetched for me. Coincidences. Disjointed, unconnected facts.”

“Anyway, Arnie, the real purpose of my call was to ask you if it would be okay for Jane and me to visit Mrs. Gallagher while we’re in the area tomorrow.”

“’Course it would be fine. But what the hell are you two doing in the area?”

“Oh, Jane’s got some kind of art project down on the estuary, you know, teaming up with a few other students in the wetlands.”

“Yeah, right,” said Arnold, and hung up the phone.

Jimmy chuckled. “Cunning old bastard,” he muttered to himself. “But he’s being a bit bloody hasty on this one. I’m not done with it yet. Not by a good long way.”

Jimmy’s evening at the Australian embassy passed with its customary luxury, the white-jacketed butler serving dinner to Jane and her fiance as if Jimmy were the ambassador himself. The following morning they set off at 8 A.M., down Interstate 95 to Fredericksburg, and then to Route 17, which followed the Rappahannock River all the way to its estuary and the little town of Brockhurst.

Jimmy and Jane parked his Jaguar behind the Estuary Hotel, not twenty-five yards from where someone had