The Lazarus Trap (25 page)

“Who is we?”

She finished slicing a lamb roast into thick slabs and began slapping hot English mustard on fresh bread. “Answer my question.”

Val felt something ugly and unwelcome crawl around in his gut. Terrance had outmaneuvered him very badly. The attackers on the boat had terrified him. His entire focus had been on one single tactic. Cut and run.

Audrey's attitude became clear to him now. His conception of this woman and her state were entirely wrong. She was not pining away for him. Nor was she planning to help him escape. She had brought him here with the exact opposite in mind. And she was worried he would let her down.

Again.

The kettle whistled behind her. She moved with the efficient motions of an experienced chef, drawing out plates and saucers and cups, fixing a pot of tea, slicing fresh lemon, squeezing it into one cup, stirring in two heaping spoonfuls of sugar. Reaching through the partition and setting it on the counter for him. Val stared at the steaming mug. He was far less sure what he wanted than Audrey was.

“Go tell Father his tea is ready. No doubt you'll find him in the garden.”

Nighttime had been banished from the rear of the house. Spotlights were fastened to the back wall, and others embedded in the garden soil. A postage stamp of a lawn was rimmed by flowers that sparkled from the recent storm. The perimeter wall was fifteen feet high and made from brick so old it was crumbling. The garden was on fire with color.

Arthur d'Arcy puttered by the back wall and hummed a single faltering note, a soft message that his entire universe was bordered by these brick walls. Val stood in the doorway, breathing in the scent of tilled earth and an evening stolen from some softer season. Overhead he spotted a first star.

“Mr. d'Arcy?”

“Eh? Yes?” The old man slowly rose from his stoop. “Ah. You're Audrey's young man.”

Val watched him ease up in very gradual stages. The hand holding the trowel was slightly curved, like a bird's claw, and pressed tightly against the base of his ribcage. “Audrey says your tea is ready.”

“Splendid.” He set the trowel down by the flowers he was planting and stripped off his gloves. “The weather has been positively atrocious, wouldn't you agree?”

Val pointed to where roses the size of pink dinner plates climbed the rear wall. “Those are some amazing flowers.”

“Yes, my high walls trap the spring heat. That is, when there is any sun at all.” His walk was not quite a limp, but he carefully favored his left side. “But those roses have very little to do with me, I'm afraid. I trim them back each November and till in a bit of bone-meal every spring. The rest is up to God and nature. Have a look at the stems where they emerge from the earth. Thick around as your thigh, they are. I wouldn't care to hazard a guess how long they've been standing sentry there by my wall, doing their proper duty each and every spring.”

D'Arcy smiled at Val as he took the back steps one at a time. “Pity not all of life follows such a proper course, wouldn't you agree?”

Val matched his pace to the older man's and followed him back inside. The home's ease relaxed him so thoroughly that, in his already weakened state, he had trouble lifting his feet over the top step.

Arthur d'Arcy washed his hands in the kitchen sink and asked his daughter, “What has he determined?”

Audrey kept her gaze on her work. “Val hasn't said.”

The two of them stood by the back window, eating their sandwiches and sipping tea in the companionable silence of people who had long since left behind the need for empty chatter. Val's provisions were stationed on the kitchen's other side, a silent message that he was relegated to the fringe.

Arthur reported to his daughter, “Gerald phoned you.”

“What did he say?”

“That he was back and he had your message.” Arthur held his cup out for refilling. “He said if you were absolutely certain, he would go along.”

Audrey cut Val with a glance, but said nothing.

Val stared through the partition to the empty living room. An ancient anger barely managed to flicker up through the blanket of fatigue. But he knew it was there, banked up and hidden behind the same walls that kept out most of his memories.

Val turned around. He could hear weariness gum up his words, but could do nothing about it. “What exactly is it you want?”

Arthur smiled slightly, then buried it in his cup.

His daughter replied. “Terrance drained the British company's pension fund. He has blamed it on my father. Now we learn that the plant is due for closure.”

“Spun off, I believe is the word they're using.” Arthur shrugged. “The employees will be left penniless. This simply cannot be permitted.”

“They're going to blame it on Dad. They've said he might be brought up on charges.”

“Hardly a major concern,” Arthur replied. “Given my current state.”

“I won't let that happen.”

Val stared down at his hands. He knew what the next step should be. Not even the weight bearing down on his eyelids could keep that out. He told them, “I need access to a computer wired into the company system.”

“Listen to you,” Audrey said. “You're asleep on your feet.”

Arthur drained his cup. “Gerald should be able to arrange that.”

“Who's Gerald?”

“A chief engineer at the company,” Arthur explained. “Splendid chap. My former protégé.”

“You'll be staying at his place.” Audrey slipped her keys off the counter. “Safer for us all.”

Arthur went on, “I won't have this turned into a vendetta against my son.”

“Pop, please.”

“This is about saving the livelihoods of hundreds of good men and women. People I have worked and lived with for years. People who trust me. I can't let them down. But I will not be party to a lynching of my firstborn.”

Audrey slipped by Val without actually looking his way. “We've been all through this.”

Arthur waved that away. “Mind what I say. This can't be about attacking Terrance. No matter what he's done. Two wrongs have never been known to make a right.”

THE NEXT MORNING'S HIGHWAY WAS A SWIFT-RUNNING TRENCH six lanes wide. The weather made no difference to British driving patterns. The Bentley kept to the middle lane and drilled through the dismal day at a steady eighty-five kilometers per hour. The spray formed sheets higher than the car. The car behind them was less than five feet back. The Bentley was even closer to the one ahead. Trucks hemmed them to the left, a Porsche hammered past on their right. Inside the Bentley, it was so quiet Terrance could hear the clock ticking in the distant front dash, the chunking sound of the wipers, the quiet hum of the bar's refrigerator.

Terrance knew he should be highly worried about this turn of events. But he could not get beyond his sense that he was seated by a true professional. Loupe's features were mottled with age spots, but he handled himself like a prince. His voice was as solicitous as it had been the previous day. Loupe inquired if Terrance was hungry, if there was anything further that might be done for his comfort. Terrance knew he was on the receiving end of a charm offensive. And did not mind in the least. Wally remained stonelike in the front seat. Terrance did not mind this either. He was in control now. Let her play the dutiful servant until her skills were required.

Portsmouth struck Terrance as the epitome of all that was wrong with England's towns. The highway clogged as it fed into a frenetic ring road. The rain was blowing in hard off the sea now, dissolving colors and turning the town a shade of industrial grey. The driver's phone chirped as he maneuvered through a traffic-snarled roundabout. He raised his voice to announce, “They might have found something, Boss.”

“Ah, a welcome gift for our arrival. Don't you agree?” He flashed the chalky teeth. “Take us there.”

The street was a weary Victorian hedge against the tides of upward mobility. The houses marched down either side of a narrow lane, each with a front garden the size of a welcome mat. The houses were all brick, all leaning tightly against one another, with cars crammed down the road almost as firmly as the homes. A pair of hardfaced professionals left their sentry duty by the front door of a bed-and-breakfast. They stepped forward and did homage to Joe Loupe, giving little bows and deferential murmurs. Wally rose from her car seat but did not move forward with the others. She stared at nothing, was recognized by no one. Just a hard-faced woman standing at the edge of the action.

An older woman appeared in the bed-and-breakfast's doorway. She greeted all this commotion with a raspy cough and fished in her sweater for a cigarette. “Any you gents spare a light?”

The driver flicked open a gold lighter and held it for her. She thanked him with another cough. Ashes formed intricate grey swirls on the front of her cardigan, surrounding a multitude of burn holes. The woman was greasy and unkempt. Up close, Terrance could see the pink bald skin beneath hair of woven glass. “Like I told the gents, your honor, I didn't see a thing.”

“But surely you must recognize one of your own guests.”

“The blokes that come here, they ain't after being recognized. They want a stroll to the bar, a quiet kip, a slap-up breakfast, and they're off.” She dragged in about a third of her cigarette. “The less I ask, the more they'll come back. That's the way it is these days, your honor.”

“Of course, my dear lady. You do what you must.”

“The only reason I noticed him at all is on account of how he's taken a room and dusted off already. Didn't take no breakfast.”

The muscle confirmed, “His room's empty.”

Loupe lifted one hand. Instantly the muscle passed over a photograph. “Just have one more look at this, would you please?”

She reluctantly glanced over. “Like I told your blokes, they come, they go. It mighta been him.”

“I find a bit of cash can do marvels for the memory. A veritable wonder drug, don't you agree?” He pressed the photo closer still. “Say, a hundred pounds?”

The woman had clearly been waiting for this. “Said his name was Adams. The bloke sounded American.”

“Did he, now? How very splendid.” He motioned to his driver. “Pay the dear lady. Now then, you see? We have established a line of communication. Might there be anything else you could share with us?”

“For another hundred knicker?”

“I pay for what I receive, dear lady. You bear witness to that.”

“He made a call.”

“From your own line?”

“Separate. Got it set up in the front parlor for my guests.”

“A pay phone, is it? And you receive a list of all calls made, don't you?”

She pretended a casual shrug. “I suppose I could print you out a page.”

“How very splendid. Michael?”

When the money was handed over, she extracted a well-creased page from a pocket big as a pouch. She pointed with a yellow-stained finger. “That's the one. Down there at the bottom. Last call but one going out.”

Terrance craned forward, though he already knew what he would find. One glance was enough. “That's our man.” He turned and stamped away. A dozen paces beyond the Bentley, he pulled out his cell phone and dialed.

Don came instantly on the line. “What?”

“It's me.”

“And?”

“Val is still on the loose.”

Don huffed quietly. Again. Then, “This cannot be happening.”

“He took the boat to Jersey. They had two hit men stalking him. Val got away. He hid on the boat, didn't get off at all, and returned to England.”

Don's voice kept to a light musicality. Despite the late hour, Don must have already been on public display. “Let me get this straight. We're down here spreading out all our evidence, which they are all taking as solid gospel, let me tell you. We're claiming Val Haines has managed to slip away with $422 million. Boom. He's gone. They are raking through this with electron microscopes and SEC sniffer hounds, looking for some way to tie us in and drop us in the pit.”

“The inspectors are with you now?”

“Inspectors, auditors, external counsel, we have an army of suits in here. The entire office building is smelling blood. Their own. So my job is to walk around pretending that everything is just fine. Which they know is absolute fabrication.” His breaths were tight little wisps. But his words kept coming out light as air. Terrance could imagine the rictus grin he was wearing. “We're spinning our tales and they're swallowing our bait. I'm singing and I'm dancing and I'm lying with every breath. And everything depends on this one thing going down. Everything. Our lives, our futures, our money. And you're telling me this guy is
on the loose?
”

“I know where he is.”

“So tell.”

“Hastings.”

“You mean, he's headed for our plant in Hastings?”