Skylark Page 11

  I chugged through the shortest cafeteria line and bought a pot of tea on the theory that the tea couldn't be as awful as the coffee looked. I wandered around the no-smoking section and finally perched on a stool by a high counter with five other people sitting in a row like birds on a telephone wire. The Formica-covered tables were either occupied or littered with trays, dirty dishes, and cups.

  School-leavers in maroon and gold uniforms moved among the crud, working without urgency. Children howled or romped, depending on their temperaments. Parents growled. Businessmen snapped newspapers open and gulped tea. Everywhere, bags and baggage carts and parcels sat on the sticky floor. Nobody was going to leave a bag unattended, even for a minute.

  Wishing I'd kept my copy of the Telegraph, I drank tea and waited. The P.A. rattled out announcements in English, French, and German. In San Francisco the alternate languages were Japanese and Spanish. I felt very far from home, and my edginess moved rapidly toward impatience. I wanted to see Jay.

  After a last acrid sip, I rose, bused my teapot and cup on the nearest debris-laden table, and went back down to the waiting area.

  A brass rail at chest height topped the glass partition that separated incoming passengers from the people meeting them. I positioned myself about halfway down, between a Pakistani family and a couple of men waiting for business associates. My station gave me a clear view of the arrival corridor.

  It was easy to tell when one of the jumbo jets unloaded. The passengers' luggage all bore the same airport tags, and people carried the same kinds of souvenirs and sporting gear. It was early in the season for large groups of touring families but the right time for seniors. Some of the elderly passengers looked as if they might collapse in the gangway, though I thought the distance from plane to reception area had to be less grueling than the endless tiled corridors at Heathrow. Gatwick was a much smaller airport.

  Jay's flight was announced. My heartbeat quickened, then smoothed for the long wait. He had to go through customs. After what seemed like an hour but was more like twenty minutes, I saw a clump of mixed businessmen and tourists straggling out with DFW, and LAX, the connecting flight, on their luggage tags.

  I saw Jay well before he saw me, and I waved and called his name, modulating my voice so as not to annoy my British compeers at the rail. They don't like outbursts of public emotion. Jay didn't hear me, of course. He plodded on. He was frowning a little, and his shoulder sagged under the weight of his battered grey garment bag. He wore jeans, a sage-green pullover and the tweed jacket I had bought him as a joke when he became a professor, and he looked so American a lump rose to my throat. I waved again. This time he saw me.

  His eyes widened a little, but his expression didn't change. He veered toward me without pausing, and almost careened into a family of English tourists with Disneyland balloons tied to their luggage cart. Jay is inclined to come straight to the point.

  When he reached the rail he dropped the bag on the floor. I suppose I was babbling greetings. He didn't say anything. He took my head in both hands and gave me a long unEnglish kiss on the mouth, and I made a discovery.

  "You have the shakes."

  "Right. Get me out of here."

  I pointed toward the end of the rail. "I'll meet you there."

  I dashed through the waiting crowd. I had only seen Jay in that state once before, and the circumstances had been unpleasant. I elbowed my way past a woman with an artificial smile. She was holding up a sign identifying her to a tour group.

  I hugged Jay again. "When did it hit you?"

  "After customs." He was speaking through clenched teeth.

  At least he hadn't shaken all the way from Dallas to London. I took the garment bag from him, slung it over my left shoulder, and put my right arm around his waist. "Come on."

  As we threaded through the crowd and made our way past Departures to the main exit, I reflected on what Jay had just gone through. I could feel his body trembling against my arm. He didn't say anything. Neither did I. There was nothing to say.

  We slithered through the patient lines of departing passengers and made for the exit to the train depot. I had not thought to buy him a ticket when I arrived.

  "Wait right here," I muttered as we reached the ticket queue. I dropped the bag.

  "Okay."

  I forged into the line behind a kid with a monumental backpack and bought Jay a ticket. That done, I led him through the turnstile and down the elevator to the train level. We boarded a waiting train and sat quietly for five minutes until the train gave a small lurch and set into motion. I could feel Jay trembling beside me, but the shaking was less violent than in the airport.

  Once the train left Gatwick for open country I said, "Better?"

  "Yes. I'm tired." He wriggled his shoulders against the seat-back.

  I let out a long sigh. "Then lean against me and nap. We're an hour from Victoria. Are you okay?"

  "Yeah."

  "I'm sorry."

  He squeezed my hand. "I think I may see my thirty-ninth birthday after all." Jay would turn thirty-nine in May. For some reason thirty-nine was bothering him more than thirty-eight.

  "I'm relieved to hear it."

  The shaking eased. A Britrail employee pushed a cart through, flogging crisps and fish-paste sandwiches.

  Jay gave a drowsy snort of laughter. "Jesus, what a trip. Remind me to tell you what it's like to spend four hours at Dallas airport. G'night, Lark." It was broad daylight.

  "I love you," I said. He fell asleep as I spoke. At a guess--what with final exams, flying, worrying about flying, and worrying about me--he hadn't slept in thirty-six hours.

  When the conductor came to check tickets I handed him mine and Jay's. The man, rosy and just this side of plump, gave me a beaming smile. Jay didn't stir. The other passengers regarded me with smiling benevolence, as if I had kept him up with nonstop sex all weekend. I wished that had been the case.

  When we pulled into Victoria Station I shook Jay awake. It took a while. Everyone had left the car by the time I got him on his feet and retrieved the bag. We queued for a taxi.

  "You're not under arrest." He yawned.

  The woman standing beside me gave me a startled glance and looked away. I felt my face go hot. "Not yet."

  Jay stretched, and peered past the double line-up of waiting taxis. "Holy shit, they do use those red buses."

  I smiled. "And the black taxis, too."

  "And it's raining."

  "All the time."

  "I expect we'll get used to it after a year or so."

  "Year!"

  "It'll take at least that long to get me back on a plane."

  "That's okay. I'll abandon you," I said lightly. The woman beside me climbed into a taxi. I could see her peering back at us as her cab pulled away.

  I explained to the waiting driver where we wanted to go, and we got in. The cab pulled out into the stream of traffic heading for the roundabout in front of Buckingham Palace. Traffic was heavy but no more so than usual. I settled back and began giving Jay a recap of the past day and a half, notably our new flat, my interrogation, and Milos's disappearance.

  Jay made a small choking sound.

  I stared.

  He was grinning. "Look at those damned cars. The ones in front of us."

  I looked. "What about them?"

  "They're booming along with a neatly strapped-in passenger and no driver."

  I sighed. British cars, naturally, reverse the position of driver and front seat passenger. Until they get used to the idea, the illusion of driverless vehicles causes Americans and other right-minded people to do a double take.

  "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 statu
e 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.

  Chapter 10.

  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.