Frazier was shoving his legs into his trousers. “God only knows.”
Chapter 11
Will felt good to be out on the road, traveling light, like the old days. He’d had an excellent night’s rest in a cushy first-class sleeper seat which, by a twist of fate he’d never know, was originally intended for young, dead Adam Cottle. He wasn’t an experienced international traveler, but he’d been to the UK and Europe a few times on Bureau business. He’d even given a talk at New Scotland Yard a few years back, titled “Sex and the Serial Killer-The American Experience.” It had been well attended, and, afterward, a bunch of ranking detectives had taken him out on a pub crawl that predictably ended in amnesia.
Now he was chugging through the flat English countryside in a Chiltern Rail first-class car an hour out of Marylebone Station on the Birmingham line. The gray sprawl of London had given way to the earth tones of cultivated land, a palette of greens and browns muted by the wash of a wet autumn day. At full throttle, the rainwater on the train’s windows streaked horizontally. His eyelids grew heavy watching the tilled fields, rolls of hay, and drab, utilitarian farm buildings whizzing by. Small villages filled the window for seconds, then were gone. He had the compartment to himself. It was a Sunday, and this was low season for tourists.
Back home, he imagined that Nancy would be up soon, and later in the morning she would take Phillip out in the stroller, that is, if it weren’t pouring there too. He’d forgotten to check the forecast before he left but regardless, he was certain Nancy would have her head in a personal little rain cloud. When he got done with his treasure hunt, he planned to spend some time in Harrods figuring out how to buy his way out of his mess. Anyway, he could afford it. He was embarrassed to tell her, but Spence had made an off-the-scale offer. He’d never considered himself someone who could be seduced by money, but then again, no one had ever thrown cash his way before. As a new experience, it wasn’t unpleasant.
The price tag for the assignment? A check for $50,000 and the title to the bus! As soon as Spence kicked it, the motor home was his. He didn’t know how he’d afford to gas it up, but worst case, he’d plant the thing in an RV park in the Florida panhandle and make it their vacation getaway.
The bigger carrot was still on the stick. Spence wanted the DODs for his clan, but on that request, Will would not relent. The number Spence put on the table made him gasp for air, but there wasn’t enough money on the planet. If he flagrantly violated his confidentiality agreements, then he was afraid Nancy’s assessment would be correct: he’d be putting their heads on the chopping block.
Awakening from a doze, he heard the conductor over the loudspeaker and blinked at his watch. He’d been out for the better part of an hour, and the train was slowing as it approached the outskirts of the large market town.
Stratford-upon-Avon. Shakespeare country. The irony made him smile. He’d gotten into Harvard because he could clobber a running back who was trying to get a football past him, not because of his aptitude in literature. He’d never read a word of Shakespeare in his life. Both his ex-wives were theater nuts, but it wasn’t contagious. Even Nancy tried to get him to see a crowd-pleaser, Macbeth, if he recalled, but he’d pouted so much, she dropped it. He couldn’t imagine what all the fuss was about, and here he was, carrying perhaps the rarest of all Shakespearean artifacts, possibly the only known piece of work definitively written in Shakespeare’s own hand.
The station was Sunday-quiet, with only a handful of cabs at the stand. A driver was standing next to his car, smoking a cigarette in the drizzle, his cap soaked through. He flicked away the butt and asked Will where he was heading.
“Going to Wroxall,” Will said. “A place called Cantwell Hall.”
“Didn’t figure you for a Willie Wonka tourist,” the cabbie said, looking him up and down. Will didn’t get his meaning. “You know, Willie Shake Rattle and Roll, the great bard and all that.”
Everyone’s a profiler, these days, Will thought.
Wroxall was a small village about ten miles north of Stratford, deeper into the ancient Forest of Arden, now hardly that, the forest cleared centuries ago for agriculture. The Normans had called Arden the beautiful wild country. The best description it could muster today would be pleasant and tame.
The taxi sped along the secondary roads past dense hedgerows of field maple, hawthorn, and hazel, and plowed, stubbly fields.
“Lovely weather you brung with you,” the cabbie said.
Will didn’t want to do small talk.
“Most folks going to Wroxall go to the Abbey Estate conferencing center. Beautiful place, all done up ’bout ten years back, stately hotel and all. Christopher Wren’s country digs.”
“Not where I’m going.”
“So you said. Never been up to Cantwell Hall, but I know where it is. What brings you here, if I may ask?”
What would this guy say if he told him the truth, Will thought? I’m here to solve the greatest mystery in the world, driver. Meaning of life and death. Beginning and end. Throw in the existence of God while you’re at it. That’s why I’m here. “Business,” he said.
The village itself was a blip. A few dozen houses, a pub, post office, and general store.
“Entering and leaving Wroxall village,” the cabbie said with a nod. “Just two miles on now.”
The entrance to Cantwell House was unmarked, a couple of brick pillars on either side of a threadbare gravel lane with a central row of untamed grass. The lane plunged through an overgrown, wet meadow dotted with the fading hues of late-season wildflowers, limp, blue speedwells mostly, and the occasional clump of fleshy mushrooms. In the distance, around a sharp curve, he caught sight of gables peeking above a high hedge of hawthorn that obscured most of the building.
As they got closer, the sheer magnitude of the house jumped out at him. It was a hodgepodge of gables and chimneys, pale, weathered brick rendered over a visible Tudor exoskeleton of dark purplish timbers. Through the hedge, he could see that the central face of the house was completely clad in ivy cut away from white-framed leaded windows by someone who seemed to lack a facility for right angles and straight lines. The pitched and multiangled slate roof was slimy and moss green, more animate than inanimate. What he could see of the tangled front garden beds suggested they were, at best, lightly tended.
Passing through a generous, hedge-formed portico, the lane turned into a circular drive. The cab crunched to a halt on gravel near a latticed, oak door. The front windows were dead and reflective. “Dark as a tomb in there,” the driver said. “Want me to wait?”
Will got out and paid. There was a wisp of smoke coming from one of the chimneys. He cut the man loose. “I’m good,” he said, shouldering his bag. He pressed the buzzer and heard a faint interior chime. The taxi disappeared through the second hedged portico, back to the lane.
The entrance was unprotected from the elements, and while he listened for signs of life, his hair was slicking with rain. After a good minute, he pressed the buzzer again, then used his knuckles for emphasis.
The woman who opened the door was wetter than he was. She’d obviously been caught in the shower and without time to towel off had thrown on a pair of jeans and a shirt.
She was tall and graceful, a cultured, expressive face with confident eyes, skin, young and fresh, the color of buttermilk. Her clavicle-length blond hair was dripping onto her cotton shirt, and the outline of her breasts showed through its wet translucency.
“I’m terribly sorry,” she said. “It’s Mr. Piper, isn’t it?”
She’s gorgeous, he thought, not what he needed right now. He nodded, and said, “Yes ma’am,” like a polite Southern gentleman, and followed her inside.
Chapter 12
The housekeeper’s at church, Granddad’s deaf as a post, and I was in the shower, so you, I’m afraid, were left standing out in this wretched weather.”
