Ghost Image, page 20
Perry stared at a spot over my shoulder. I knew that concentrated expression. He was working something out. “Have you ever considered that Kevin left a clue to what happened to those seeds right there in plain sight and you’ve been looking at it all this time?”
“No. But I guess maybe I should, shouldn’t I?”
“If I were you and someone just tried to put me in the deep freeze, I’d be looking at every angle.”
“It’s so comforting talking to you,” I said. “I feel so much better.”
He flashed a quick grin before turning serious. “I’m not joking around. What does Nick say about all this?”
“He doesn’t know. He’s still in the Middle East.”
Perry regarded me with a one-eyed squint. “What’s he doing there?”
“Reconnaissance for Quill Russell, the former secretary of state. He’s putting together a consulting firm and wants Nick to be his energy guy.”
“Nick will be set for life if he hooks up with Quillen Russell and his gold-plated address book. And, not to give marital advice since I’m so lousy at it, but you ought to tell him what’s going on, you know. Nick, not Quill Russell.”
I smiled. “I will. When I see him.” I balled up my paper napkin and set it on the tray next to the teapot. “Can I ask a favor? Two?”
“Ask me anything, sweetheart.”
“Can you let me know any new information concerning Archduke Orlando Haupt-von Véssey? He’s in St. Mary’s, recovering from pneumonia.”
“Have we turned into a paparazza?”
I glared at him. “No, of course not. I’m the photographer at his son’s wedding in Washington. I’m asking as a friend of the family. And before you say a word, I’m not turning into a wedding photographer, either. It’s a one-time favor for Victor.”
Perry looked at me with more respect. “I’m impressed. What’s your other favor?”
“Do you remember a story in the British press concerning Edward Jaine? Something not very flattering, possibly involving computer exports to the Third World?”
He shook his head. “Vaguely. I’ll check it out and either call you or send you a link.”
“Thanks. I owe you.” I stood up. “I probably ought to be getting back to the Connaught.”
Perry got up, too. “How much longer are you staying in London?”
“We go home Friday.”
“Any more news about your grandfather?”
“Nope. Mom’s still in Connecticut.”
He draped his arm around me as we walked outside. “One more thing,” he said as though he’d just thought about it. “There’s an opening for a shooter in the D.C. bureau. Monica wants to talk to you.”
Monica Yablonski, the International Press Service Washington bureau chief, was tough as old boots, the kind of boss who made Perry—as demanding as he was—look like a pussycat.
“What happened? Which photographer quit or got fired? I lost track of the body count in that bureau,” I said. “Thanks, but I don’t need my butt kicked by Monica every day, Perry. It’s nice to be my own boss for a change.”
He did his best impression of looking as if I’d stabbed him through the heart. “Are you kidding me? You’re not interested? Come on, Medina. You can handle Monica. Don’t sit on the sidelines. You ought to still be in the game.”
“Washington is nothing like working in the field. It’s press release city, full of talking heads and navel gazers.”
“It’s a major bureau. People would kill to have that beat. Aren’t you the least bit interested?” He gave me a sly look. “The opening is at the White House. You wouldn’t be based in the bureau. Job’s yours if you want it.”
The White House. A plum job, press photographer for a major news bureau. He’d held that piece of information back until the end.
“Monica actually said that? Come on, Perry, what did she really say?”
“She’d like to talk to you.”
“Thought so. She needs to find someone who hasn’t heard about her reputation for eating reporters and photogs for breakfast and spitting out the bones. Some benighted soul who’s been living in a cave for the last couple of years.”
“Aren’t you being a little harsh? Sweetheart, this is the brass ring. Talk it over with Nick if you want, but Monica’s beating people away with a stick. At least promise me you’ll call her and throw your hat in the ring.”
“I’ll think about it. I’m happy freelancing and I’m plenty busy.”
“You haven’t got long. She wants it filled by Friday. Tick, tick, tick.”
“Typical Monica,” I said. “It’s another road job if the president travels a lot. And this one goes to North Carolina for breakfast, Michigan for lunch, and Prague for dinner and a summit.”
A boxy black cab turned onto Duncannon Street. Perry put his hand up and the driver pulled over to the curb. He opened the door and turned to me.
“I miss you,” he said, giving me a hug and a quick kiss on the lips. “Since you left no one turns in expenses for mileage on a camel or insists they didn’t get my e-mails saying they couldn’t upgrade their flight to first class.”
“I miss you, too, and I was sore for weeks after that camel ride, and the upgrade was from Ulan Bator. The flight was full and the next one wasn’t for another week.”
He grinned and helped me into the cab. “She’s going to the Connaught,” he said through the window to the driver. “Take good care of her.”
“Don’t you worry, she’ll be safe as houses with me, guv’nor.”
Perry shut the door and the driver made one of those impossible tight circle turns London cabs are famous for. I looked over my shoulder and waved until we turned the corner onto the Strand.
“Everything all right, love?” The driver met my eyes in his rearview mirror as I settled back into the seat.
“Would you mind taking me down Whitehall? I’d like to see Horseguards Parade and Parliament and the Abbey.”
“Of course. I’ll take you by the Palace as well.”
The training to become one of the world-famous London black-cab drivers is notoriously grueling and takes years to accomplish because it involves an intensive amount of studying, driving, and memorizing the city’s maze of streets, both big and small. There are multiple exams and hundreds of routes that must be known by heart. The process even has a name: “Doing the Knowledge.”
My driver, an elderly gentleman with flowing gray hair and a neatly trimmed beard, realized at once that I was checking his mirrors. “No one’s following us, miss. I promise you,” he said. “And if they were, I’d let you know and I’d lose ’em.”
“Thank you.”
But in spite of his comforting promise, I couldn’t help casting an occasional glance out the windows and in his mirrors. Because maybe Perry was right: Whoever locked us in the vault this afternoon might not have been targeting Alastair.
He might have been after me.
FIFTEEN
Archduke Victor Haupt-von Véssey turned away from the front desk at the Connaught as I walked into the hotel lobby shortly before five. His face lit up with his warm smile when he saw me, but otherwise he looked haggard and as if he hadn’t slept much lately.
He kissed me on both cheeks. “It’s good to see you here.”
At home he was always well dressed, no baggy shorts, T-shirts, flip-flops, or baseball caps. But here in London there was something different about him, the elegant cut of his expensive suit, his erect posture, a confidence that made me more aware of his stature as a member of one of Europe’s most distinguished royal families.
“And you,” I said, smiling. “What are you doing at the Connaught?”
“Looking for you,” he said, surprising me. “I had a meeting in Grosvenor Square this afternoon and then I walked around the corner to the Jesuit church across the street from here to light a candle for my father. Maybe you know it? The Farm Street Church?”
I nodded, and he said, “You mentioned in your e-mail that you would be staying here, so I dropped by on the chance you might be in and perhaps free for a drink. And before I forget, thank you for what you said about my father and for your concern. I was very touched.”
“How is he? The news stories say he’s quite ill.”
The look in his eyes told me it was even worse than that. “My mother arrived this morning. She was on a cruise with friends off the coast of Turkey and this was the soonest she could get off the ship and catch a flight to London. He’s doing poorly, but he’s fighting.”
“I’m so sorry. I hope he’ll pull through.”
“So do I.” He sounded upbeat, but his smile was strained. “Are you all right? You look a bit pale yourself.”
“Me? Oh, it’s nothing. I was out today and didn’t dress warmly enough. It’s chillier here than at home.”
“Come on,” he said. “I think we could both use a drink. There must be something on the Coburg Bar’s massive drinks menu that can warm you up and give me a bit of liquid courage.”
We sat at the same table next to the fireplace where Harry and I had sat the night before. Like Harry, Victor had Scotch, but didn’t make his choice until he’d had an intense discussion with our waiter about the finer points of Highland and Lowland malts. I had a glass of sherry.
“Why do you need liquid courage?” I asked as the waiter set down our drinks and we touched glasses. “Is it something to do with your father?”
He shook his head. “I think Yasmin and I should postpone the wedding.”
I set my glass down. “What does she think?” One look at his face, and I said, “She doesn’t know.”
“Not yet.”
“When are you going to tell her?”
He looked like a man who just heard bad news from a jury. “We moved out of my parents’ house on Eaton Square this morning over to the Goring and were planning to have a quiet dinner in the hotel tonight. I thought I’d tell her then.”
Eaton Square was one of London’s posh addresses in Belgravia, an elegant residential garden square faced mostly by terraced white stucco Regency buildings. I hadn’t realized Archduke Orlando and his wife owned a house there, but they were in good company since it was a neighborhood known for its famous residents, real and fictional.
“How do you think she’s going to take it?”
Victor drank some Scotch. “I think she’ll be okay. My father’s illness, Kevin’s death, her mother’s political campaign, all the problems with that …” He made a face like the Scotch tasted off when he mentioned Ursula.
“You mean Ursula’s primary? She told me she has a tough fight against a wealthy opponent.”
“Brutal would be a better word. Elections in America, my God, they cost so much. Ursula just hired a new media consultant, and all the campaign language makes it sound like this is some kind of war. I’m absolutely stunned.”
“You mean David Arista’s media company?”
He nodded. “He’s supposed to be the best. He works with Yasmin on the Creativity Council.”
If he thought there was something between his fiancée and his future mother-in-law’s media consultant, he was too much of a gentleman to let it show.
I made a small circle on the table with my glass. “I didn’t know your parents had a house in Eaton Square. That must be quite a large place. Did you think your mother wanted privacy and that’s why you moved to the hotel?”
He gave me a piercing look. “I should have realized you’d pick up on that remark. My mother is not … overly fond … of Yasmin. Sometimes even the largest houses can seem small when there is no harmony among the people who live there.”
“Is the feeling mutual, if I’m not being too nosy?”
He propped an elbow on the table and rested his chin on his hand. “Actually, I’m glad to have someone to confide in. And, yes, it’s mutual, unfortunately.”
“What about your father?”
“He is concerned about the age difference, but he likes Yasmin.”
“Maybe postponing is a good idea with all the stress everyone is dealing with.” I touched my glass against his again. “Look, you have the rest of your life to be married. A few months isn’t going to change anything. Perhaps Yasmin will take the news better than you expect.”
I hoped she would, for his sake.
His smile didn’t make it all the way to his eyes. “Of course.”
“Where is she now?”
“Working, believe it or not. You’ll never guess who is in town. Edward Jaine.”
“Good Lord, what’s he doing here?”
“He has meetings, I believe, with some financial people in the City. Yasmin has been courting him to get him to become part of the Smithsonian Creativity Council. They’re having tea together this afternoon.”
I thought about the intimate exchange I’d witnessed between them at the engagement party and wondered if they were just talking business. “He’d be an interesting addition,” I said.
Victor smiled. “I take it you’re not a fan?”
“I’m not being fair because I don’t actually know him.”
“I do know him and I resented the way he treated Kevin.”
“You knew he was Kevin’s benefactor?”
He nodded. “I spoke to my father and asked if he’d be interested in the two of us underwriting Kevin’s expenses so he wouldn’t have to deal with Edward Jaine anymore. Kevin and I flew over here to discuss it with my father the week before Kevin died.”
The conversation between Ursula’s neighbors at the engagement party came back to me: The husband had remarked that Victor would inherit the old archduke’s art collection … and his library.
Was Archduke Orlando the other interested party in Kevin’s copy of Adam in Eden?
“Did Kevin bring a book with him for your father to look at?”
He sat back in surprise. “How do you know about it?”
“It’s a long story. I found it.”
His eyes widened. “My God, I’ve been wondering what might have happened to it. Where is it now?”
“In a vault. Don’t worry, it’s safe.” Though I already could guess the answer after what Zara Remington had said at the Chelsea Physic Garden the other day, I asked anyway. “What happened when your father examined it?”
“He made a few discreet inquiries and told Kevin it was quite valuable, one of a kind.”
“Did he offer to buy it?”
Victor nodded. “As I’m sure you know, the book didn’t actually belong to Kevin because of his vow of poverty. However, my father was interested in talking to the Franciscans to see if they would consider selling it once Kevin officially told his superior that he had acquired it from Edward.”
“He hadn’t reported it to the Franciscans yet?”
My dismay must have shown, because Victor said, “No, and if he didn’t take care of that before he died, then technically Edward Jaine might be able to legally claim it’s still his. It was purchased with his money.”
I groaned. “Kevin hid the book before he died. I found it in a locker at the Natural History Museum.”
“Then we must surmise that he hadn’t reported it, mustn’t we?” He gave me an ironic smile. “And now the lawyers will decide who owns it.”
Jack O’Hara had said the same thing.
“The book is in a vault at Asquith’s Auction House in Washington,” I said. “An antiques dealer who is a good friend helped me get it to Bram Asquith, their rare-book expert.”
“My father knows Bram. Good man.” Victor drained his Scotch. “Would you care for another sherry?”
“No, thank you.”
He shook his head at the waiter who had anticipated another round of drinks and turned back to me. “Well, if Asquith’s has it, that’s probably a good thing. At least it will be properly stored and cared for until the matter of who owns it is sorted out.”
“Did Edward Jaine know how valuable the book was?”
Victor fiddled with a gold-and-carnelian heraldic crest ring on his right hand. “Kevin told me at the engagement party that he was going to talk to Edward the following day and tell him.” He gave me an unhappy look. “I have no idea if he did or not, because that afternoon he was dead.”
And before he died he met with your fiancée to urge her not to marry you if she was not sure of her feelings. For a moment I almost thought I’d said it out loud.
“I don’t know if he did, either,” I said. “I was with him that morning at the Tidal Basin because he’d promised to help me with a photography project. The next time I saw him was in the monastery garden. Yasmin probably told you I’m the one who found him when I showed up for my meeting with her and her mother that afternoon.”
He looked puzzled. “Yasmin told me that appointment was canceled.”
“It was, after everything that happened.”
“Are you saying Yasmin was at the monastery that day?”
I nodded. “So was Ursula. Her car pulled up as one of the police officers walked me into the church to ask me some questions.”
“How odd that she didn’t tell me.”
It was odd. “Maybe she didn’t want to upset you since she knew how close you and Kevin were.”
“You are probably right.”
The waiter set a leather bill folder on the table. Victor pulled out his wallet and slipped a credit card inside the case without looking at the bill.
After the waiter left, I said, “Did Yasmin know about Kevin’s book?”
“Why do you want to know that?”
I turned red. “She’s having tea with Edward Jaine.”
“No.” It came out sharp, a stinging rebuke. “She would never betray my confidence. Not only did she not come with us to London, but books, actual physical books, are most definitely not Yasmin’s ‘thing,’ as you say in America. Don’t forget the people she deals with at the museum are technology wizards or Internet billionaires like Edward. Everything she reads these days is electronic; her files and paperwork are all digital.” He smiled with regret. “Unfortunately, we don’t share a love of old books, as I discovered when she suggested rearranging my library according to the color of the dust jackets.” He added in a dry voice, “It was not one of our better conversations.”
