which was two miles away. Once they got there, Karr took out his PDA and scanned both the platform area and their things for bugs — and was so suspicious when he didn’t find any that he scanned again.
“Maybe they trust us,” said Dean. “We
“Nah. That’s a reason not to trust us,” said Karr. He pointed to the belt that activated the communications system and shook his head. Dean was only too happy not to bother turning on the system.
They didn’t speak again until after they arrived in London nearly an hour later. Karr scanned the restroom in the train station and then slapped on all of the faucets.
“Your plane leaves at five from Heathrow,” Karr told Dean.
“We’re splitting up?”
“Rubens has loaned me to the State Department.” Karr chuckled. “I get to play crossing guard.”
Dean waited for the explanation, but none came.
“Get to Heathrow by three if you can,” Karr said. “I should be back in the States in a few days. As far as I can tell, we’re not being followed and there are no bugs in here. Outside in the station, they have a regular surveillance system. You can turn your communications gear back on whenever you want.”
Dean nodded, then went over to use one of the stalls. By the time he finished, Karr was gone.
Dean circled around the train station, then went out on the street, checking to see if he was being followed. Finally he decided that he hadn’t been and turned on the communications device.
“Charlie, where have you been?” asked Telach immediately.
“Somewhere out in the country. I just came out of Paddington train station.”
“I know where you are,” said the Art Room supervisor. “Why haven’t you signed onto the communications system?”
“Tommy thought we were being followed.”
Telach made an exasperated sound and turned him over to Lief Johnson, who had taken over for Rockman as his runner.
“There’s an express train from Paddington to the airport,” said Johnson. “You have to go back into the station and turn left.”
“I know where the train is,” said Dean. “My flight isn’t until five tonight.”
“We may be able to get you something earlier.”
“Don’t bother,” said Dean, spotting a taxi.
Chief Inspector Lang looked as if he’d neither slept nor changed since Charlie had last seen him — but then again, the same could be said for Charlie.
“I’m on my way to the airport. I came to give you my phone number,” said Dean. “And to get yours.”
“You know why the man was murdered?”
Dean shook his head. “I assume it had something to do with us, but we don’t even know who he was.”
“You don’t know, or you’re not allowed to say?”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure I’d be allowed to say if I did, but I don’t know.”
“The hotel room was registered to Gordon Kensworth.”
“It was an alias. It doesn’t check out. The room was reserved with a different name and account. Vefoures. I assume you know that by now….”
Lang didn’t answer. Dean had dealt with American cops occasionally as a gas station owner. They always were skeptical when you first met them. If you got past that, they could be fairly cooperative, often helpful, and even once in a while sympathetic — but it sometimes took a lot to get past that first hurdle.
Dean glanced at his watch. He wasn’t sure how long it would take to get to the airport, and it was now past two o’clock.
“When I know more, I’ll give you a call,” he told the chief inspector. “I don’t have to work through the channels, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Are you interested in finding out who he really was?”
“Yes,” said Dean.
“Come along then.”
“Charlie, you have an airplane,” said his runner over the communications system as he started down the steps.
“I’ll take a later flight.”
Lang turned around.
“Talking to myself,” said Dean. “Bad habit.”
“Do it myself,” said the detective. “No one talks back at least.”
“I wouldn’t listen if they did,” said Dean, trotting up behind him.
Outside, the detective paused to light a cigarette.
“Want one?” he asked Dean.
“No thanks.”
“I didn’t think you were a smoker.”
“I don’t hold it against anyone.”
“Neither do I.”
Lang led Dean to his car, a five-year-old compact with a dent in the door. As they drove, Lang told him that a missing persons report had been filed that answered the murder victim’s general description. He had a hunch that this was their man and was going to find out.
“Family member is over in Brixton. Do you know where that is?”
“Couldn’t guess.”
Brixton was in London, but it wasn’t a place most tourists visited. The area mixed immigrants and hard-luck old-timers with a few dollops of working-class families trying to make ends meet. The flat they went to belonged to one of the latter, a Rose Pierce, who lived with her three tots. Her older brother Gordon Pierce, who had been staying in the room at the front for the past three months, hadn’t come home the night before.
Rose’s lip began to quiver as soon as the chief inspector showed his credentials. She led them back to the kitchen, hands trembling as she poured water into a kettle for tea. Dean took the pot from her and put it on the stove, then sat down at the small table. It was made of metal, the sides chipped and dented.
“I sent my kids around to my neighbor Eileen so’s we could talk,” said the woman.
“If you could tell us about your brother,” said Lang, his voice soft and gentle, “it might help.”
“Have you found him?”
“We don’t know.” He had a picture in his pocket, but it wasn’t particularly nice, and Dean guessed that Lang wanted to spare the woman the heartache of seeing it if he could. “It’s possible.”
Fighting back tears, Rose told them that her brother had been out of steady work for most of his adult life; he’d been a miner in Cornwall years ago, been hurt and unable to work. The story of his accident was elaborate and hard to follow — he’d been bonked on the head, but the doctors were unable to find any real damage, not even enough to qualify for what the woman called a proper pension. Lang took notes dutifully, though Dean could see he didn’t believe the brother had been disabled.
“He’d been a housepainter, on and off. At his age, not too many employers would take a chance. And he looks older than he was. That doesn’t sit well.”
“How old was he?” asked Lang.
“Fifty next month. The years wore him down. A few days ago he said he had a new job, something he couldn’t discuss,” continued the woman. “He left. He was gone for a whole night, didn’t see him the next day, yesterday, or last night.”
Lang frowned as if he didn’t quite believe this, either, and asked her for details. But she didn’t have any. Dean fit the missing time neatly into a sequence — the man was hired for the job, taken to France, then reintroduced into London.
“He came home from the pub that night, the last I saw him, and he had a few quid on him. He gave me a ten-pound note and said there’d be more. Bloody hell, that was unlike him. Not the generosity — Gordy was always a generous man. But to have money. That was mighty odd.”
The detective took a few notes, changed the subject to ask about her brother’s schooling, and then came back to the job he’d spoken of, making it seem as if it were an afterthought.
