Skylark (15 page)

"Just watch out when you cross the street," I muttered. "You'll look the wrong way and
step out in front of a taxi." As I had almost done on Sunday in my pursuit of Milos's courier.

Jay settled comfortably against me. The trembling was gone, and his eyelids hung at
half-staff. He was going to fall asleep on me again if I didn't do something. I pointed out the
palace guards, the statue of Queen Victoria on her little traffic island, and other scenic wonders,
and was describing the amenities of the plum-colored bedroom when we pulled up in front of the
house.

I paid the cab driver. He did a U-turn in front of the constable on duty as I dragged my
groggy husband and his bag up the steps. I introduced Jay to Ryan and let us in the door.

The ghastly foyer appeared to make no impression whatsoever on Jay. He was beyond
rational thought, but he did appreciate the bedroom--for about two minutes while he flung off his
clothes and burrowed under the plum-hued duvet.

"G'night," he said again, and zonked out. I retired to the living room and watched the
telly.

I also thought uncomfortable thoughts. Had I been waiting for a rescue? Jay must have
thought so, or he would not have subjected himself to that hideously prolonged flight when he
had a ticket for a direct flight from San Francisco in four days. If I had come across to him as
that desperate, I deserved to be kicked. Even if I had been arrested, what could Jay have done?
He was not a magician--or even a member of the British bar. And I hadn't been arrested. False
alarm with the stress on alarm.

I woke Jay at five, thinking he shouldn't sleep too long if he wanted to set his clock
straight. He claimed he felt considerably friskier, and we tested that theory out on the plum bed.
Satisfaction made
me
sleepy, so we took a long walk in the park afterwards, followed by
dinner at a bistro on the Old Brompton Road. When we got back to the flat, Jay made a brief call
to Harry Belknap, just touching base. We were twining together on the
faux
-zebra sofa
and puzzling over Miss Beale's murder when Ann showed up.

I thought she looked tired and preoccupied, but when I introduced her she went into her
graciousness mode at once. She was so animated as she told Jay about the mummies in the
museum I thought I must have been mistaken.

I wanted Jay to like Ann--and vice versa, of course, though it rarely occurs to me that
any sane person can dislike Jay. I saw the satirical gleam in his eye as she launched into ritual
effusion, but he was smiling at her by the time she described the fifty-two uniformed
school-children she had counted trying to fill in their notebooks in the Egyptian gallery.

"And, my word, didn't those shrill little voices echo off the pillars and tombs and
things?" She rolled her eyes. "It sounded just like a food-fight in the cafeteria back home. I was
so nostalgic I almost burst into tears."

Jay laughed.

"Did you see the Elgin Marbles?" I snuggled back down beside him. He put his arm
across my shoulders.

Ann sighed. "They were disappointing. The Portland Vase, too. I don't understand why
Keats got so worked up. However, there was this nice little temple reconstruction next door, with
a nice little bench in front of it. I sat there a good half hour, resting my feet and thinking Greek
thoughts. It was a whole lot quieter than the tombs of the pharaohs."

"No lie."

Ann gave Jay a rueful grin. "I keep trying to see the things a good tourist is supposed to
see in London, but what with this awful business of Milos, and poor Miss Beale's murder, I
reckon I've been lucky to catch a glimpse of Big Ben, let alone the Elgin Marbles."

"Frustrating," Jay murmured, stroking my back. "What do you think happened to
Vlaçek?"

Ann set her wine glass beside the bronze on the end table. "I think he was kidnapped by
the same scum who had him stabbed." Behind the rose-colored lenses, tears glazed her eyes. "I'm
afraid for his life, and the police don't care! It's not right. They may be torturing him."

I straightened and scooted sideways on the couch, the better to see Jay's face. "They
wouldn't have to torture Milos. He's a very sick man."

Jay smoothed his mustache. "Who are 'they'?"

Ann and I exchanged glances. She said, "The Czech secret police?" It was hard to tell
whether her words were a statement or a question. They didn't sound convincing.

Cold suddenly, I rubbed my sweater-clad arms. "Or British Intelligence trying to cover
up some inconvenient fact." I groped in the murk of my ignorance of international espionage.
"Or even trying to protect Milos from the Czech police."

"From the Czechs?" Jay's eyebrows twitched. He took a skeptical sip of bitter. We had
brought home an assortment of English beers from the local equivalent of a bottle store.

"Or the KGB," Ann said darkly. "If the police are trying to protect Milos, why don't they
just say so? They're hiding Salman Rushdie from the ayatollah, after all, and they've let the
media know all about that. They've even permitted reporters to interview Rushdie."

"Your friend Milos was the victim of an assault," Jay murmured, watching both of us
over the rim of his glass. "Sounds to me like he's in protective custody."

"Then why doesn't Thorne just say so!" I burst out.

"Or that matron at the hospital," Ann added, indignation burning spots of color on her
cheekbones. "She knew I was worried."

"They may not trust you." Jay's voice was mild.

Ann made an indignant noise.

"Thorne thinks we faked the burglary," I conceded. "And he took my passport."

Jay put his hands behind his head and gazed at the plaster-work ceiling. "I've been trying
to think it through since you called me Saturday, Lark, and it doesn't make sense, but I can't
come up with a scenario that ties everything together, either."

"Surely you don't believe I faked the burglary and coshed Miss Beale's poodle?"

He lowered his gaze to my indignant face and smiled at me. "No, darling, I do not, but
I'm trying to follow Thorne's thought processes. Is there any possibility Milos was stabbed by
accident?"

"Huh?"

Ann was staring at him, too, her lenses glittering.

Jay brought his arms down and picked up his beer glass again. "This woman whose bag
was stolen on the subway, how close was she to Vlaçek?"

"Standing right beside him," I said.

"Was she carrying a purse with a shoulder strap?"

I frowned, trying to remember.

"Yes," Ann said decisively. "A brown calf handbag with a strap. I noticed her, because
she blocked my view of Milos and Lark. I was trying to keep them in sight. I didn't want to lose
them in the crowd when we got off the train."

Jay brooded. "Then isn't it possible the man meant to steal her Harrods bag all along,
and that he had his knife out to slash the strap of the purse?"

I rubbed my forehead. A headache was forming between my eyebrows. "Are you saying
he meant to slash the strap, and that he stabbed Milos accidentally?"

"When the train lurched." Jay smiled at me. "Something like that."

I turned the idea over in my mind.

"What about the man who held the doors open?" Ann asked.

"That's an old pattern on subways and commuter trains," Jay explained. "The purse
snatchers work in pairs."

We sat there in silence. I was trying hard to make my impressions fit Jay's theory,
because I disliked the idea of espionage.

"I don't believe it." Ann shook her head. She was pink with agitation. "Those papers of
Milos's mean something."

"And the man in the doorway was staring at Milos." I had to agree with Ann, though I
was reluctant to let the accident idea go. "The train didn't lurch, either. It was standing dead still
in the Sloane Square station when Milos was stabbed. And what about the burglary?"

"Coincidence?"

"I suppose you're going to say Miss Beale's murder was a coincidence, too."

"Mmm."

"And the fact that she spoke fluent Czech is another coincidence?"

"Did she?" He sat up and put the beer glass aside. "You didn't mention that. How do you
know she spoke Czech?"

Shamefaced, I confessed to our drunken session with Daphne.

He got up and began prowling the room. "Czech. That's weird. Are you sure your
meeting with Milos was an accident, Ann? At the pub, I mean."

Ann's jaw dropped.

"Was it?"

"I think so. The Green Man is near the Hanover, and Milos came in with another waiter.
I ate at that pub on impulse, because it looked like something out of an English movie. And he
didn't...doesn't know where I live."

My head was spinning from Jay's abrupt reversal. "What are you saying, Jay? Do you
think Milos was trying to get to Miss Beale, that he found out where Ann was staying..."

"From the hotel?" Ann interjected doubtfully. "I did leave the basement flat as a
forwarding address."

"He discovered Ann was going to rent Miss Beale's flat, and he cozied up to Ann in
order to make contact with Miss Beale? No, that's too complicated, Jay. Milos didn't even intend
to walk us home after the matinee. He said he was going to get off at Gloucester Road."

Jay was peering at a drawing of a wildebeest. He turned. "You're probably right. Chelsea
is a fairly international part of London, isn't it?"

"I showed you the Lycée and the Yemeni embassy," I said. "And the Greek deli
and the Chinese restaurant."

"And so on. So it's not all that odd to bump into another Czech speaker. No wonder
Thorne is confused, poor bastard. I don't envy him."

I said, "Don't overdo the empathy. That man would be as happy as a cat with three tails
if he could charge me with murder. What's more, the press would love him for it. Depraved
American Bashes British Dog."

Jay grinned. "Come on, Lark."

"He doesn't believe me, Ann." I stood up and went over to the pile of newspapers beside
the fireplace. "Did we save that column from the Sunday
Independent
?"

Ann said in small voice, "I'm sorry. I put it out with the trash this morning. I saved the
Times
."

I straightened. My right hand was smeared with printer's ink. London newspapers have
not yet achieved photo-offset printing. "It doesn't matter. I'll buy a couple of tabloids tomorrow.
There are bound to be fresher examples of the Lynch Lark school of journalism." I trotted into
the bathroom and washed my hands.

When I came back Ann was explaining the tenor of the article to Jay. "...and the woman
was so snide, almost gloating."

Jay pulled me down beside him on the sofa and began kneading my shoulder muscles
with one hand. "Sounds unappetizing."

"And we've been besieged by reporters." Ann frowned. "Or we were yesterday and the
day before. They seem to have taken today off."

I nestled against Jay. He was working on the other shoulder. Great hands. "Maybe
there's an international crisis, or something else has happened to distract them. Did you buy the
Evening Standard
?"

"No, and I suppose it's too late to get one now." She looked at her watch. "Lordy, it's
eleven-thirty. I have an appointment in the morning." She began gathering up her purse and the
small paper sacks she had brought in with her. Souvenir postcards and slides, I supposed. And
more paperback books. Ann was going to have to pay an excess luggage charge when she flew
home. Books weigh a ton.

She said good night, shaking Jay's hand warmly and giving me a hug as we, too, rose to
go in to bed.

The plum bedroom throbbed with uxorious lust--and whatever the wifely equivalent
may be. I felt sorry for Ann, alone with her cool Renoirs.

"Nice woman." Jay watched me pull off the teal sweater.

"Do you like her? I'm glad." I kicked off my flats and wriggled out of my jeans.

"She tells a great story." He spoke absently, and his eyes were gleaming. Marriage is a
splendid institution.

I slept until half past seven without so much as twitching, and I woke happy. I looked at
Jay hopefully, but he was out of it. He didn't even stir when I kissed him on the forehead. I didn't
have the heart to wake him, though I should have. It would take him that much longer to
overcome his jet-lag.

I slid out of bed, took a quick bath, and dressed in sweats. A strange constable patrolled
the sidewalk near the house--tag end of the night shift, probably. I nodded to him and went on to
the corner and across the zebra. I bought an
Independent
, and coffee and croissants for
three, and performed a juggling act carrying the supplies several blocks home. Ann was up when
I re-entered the flat.

She fell on the coffee without speaking.

"I didn't buy the
Times
. Sorry. You can have a piece of my
Independent
."

She took a long pull at the coffee. "That's okay, honey. I'm going to take a bath and go
off to the hospital. I want to try Matron one more time. I have a ten-thirty appointment in
Bloomsbury, so I'll have to get in gear."

"All right." I sat at the blond table in the kitchen and pulled the plastic lid off my coffee.
"Any preferences for dinner? My turn to cook."

"Anything," she said absently.

I shook the paper open. "Okay."

"I think I'm in love."

I stared at her over the top of the newspaper.

She smiled. "With your husband."

"I'm forewarned." But I was pleased. "He likes you, too--said you tell a great story."

"Well!" She took a gulp of coffee and set the paper cup on the counter. "Need the
bathroom?"

I waved a croissant. "Feel free."

Ann left at half past eight. No signs of life from the bedroom. I drank the third cup of
coffee, which was tepid but good. Jay doesn't drink coffee. Then I tidied the kitchen and living
room, and poked through the stack of tour guides Ann had left on one of the end tables. Hereford
and South Wales, Yorkshire, the Scottish border. She wanted to get out of London, and I didn't
blame her.