Colleen McCullough - Too Many Murders

“It’s a deal,” said Carmine, kissing her hand. “I’ll worry just the same. London’s a big place.”

“Oh, we won’t be in London,” Desdemona said blandly. “I arranged it with Delia. We both knew you’d go home quickly, so Julian and I are going to stay with Delia’s parents in the Cotswolds. No one will find out where we’ve gone. Myron’s generosity can get us there-I confess I quail at the thought of battling with a baby, a pram and luggage on a train. We’ll travel in a Rolls.”

“It will be trains, buses and taxis next time,” he warned.

“Yes, but you’ll be there to help. I am a very large person, Carmine, but I have only one pair of hands.”

Light was dawning on Carmine. “You are pissed off at me! What a relief!”

“Yes, of course I’m pissed off!” she said crossly. “It’s no fun trying to be a perfect policeman’s wife, I can tell you! I didn’t expect you to find what you were looking for quite so quickly. I thought Julian and I would have you for at least three days. I’ve never seen the crown jewels!”

“That’s good, neither have I.”

“How long have I got?” she asked.

“I was going to see if there’s a plane tonight, but I’ll try for one tomorrow morning. Is that a lynching party?”

“No, at least we can cuddle in a king-sized bed tonight. I’ll call Mrs. Carstairs to tell her we’re coming, then we’ll check out together tomorrow morning and set off in Myron’s Rolls. Our route is west, and so is Heathrow. We can drop you off,” said Desdemona.

“That’s very smart, lovely lady. I don’t think you’re in any danger here, but it won’t do any harm to behave covertly, to use spy terminology. No one knows Delia has parents here.”

“This is a spy thing, isn’t it?”

“My interest is purely murder,” Carmine said.

At last, thought Carmine complacently as the car set him down at the bedlam of Heathrow, I am free of Myron Mendel Mandelbaum! I can use my economy class ticket and suffer the proper indignities of air travel for nine hours. But Myron had the last laugh. No sooner was Carmine on board the 707 than the chief hostess came swanning into the tail of the plane and upgraded him to first class. Accepting a bourbon and soda in a crystal tumbler, Carmine surrendered to the fleshpots.

“You have all the luck,” Ted Kelly said when Carmine ended his story. “We had several tries at Professor Lefevre, but he swore that Erica Davenport was just one more bright American student availing herself of the economic wisdom of the L.S.E. The lying old goat! He fooled us, all the time prating about his membership in the Communist Party. England’s riddled with open Communists, while our really dangerous ones dived underground with the coming of Joe McCarthy. He did more harm than good.”

“Witch hunts always do,” Carmine said.

“We’re no farther ahead for knowing about Erica.”

“I disagree. Ulysses has lost his blind. Have you ever established when exactly Cornucopia began losing secrets?”

“When our blind arrived ten years ago. The rocket fuel governor two years ago brought the thefts into the open when too many people got to know of it,” Kelly said.

“Has Cornucopia lost anything more since Erica began to get cold feet?”

“You think that happened after the Maxwell banquet, right?”

“Sure.”

“We don’t know,” Kelly said gloomily. “There haven’t been any leaps-and-bounds advances in Red designs, though we’ve made real big ones. Our own espionage network can’t find anything.”

“Well, my guess is that Ulysses is lying low. He’s got a cache of secrets waiting to go, but he’s not sure if the storm’s blown over. With Erica silenced, he’s probably relaxing, though that depends on what she told him when he tortured her.”

“What could she have told him?” Kelly demanded.

“Whatever passed between her and Skeps at the Maxwell event, first off,” Carmine said. “Ulysses may not have been there that night, but deputed Erica to quiz Skeps about something-maybe what Skeps knew about him? But she sidestepped until the Pugh blackmail letter. What we don’t know is whether it was addressed to her and she passed it on to Ulysses, or whether it was directly addressed to Ulysses.” Carmine growled in the back of his throat. “Like it or not-and I don’t like it!-I have to make that god-awful drive to Orleans to see Philomena Skeps again. Now that Erica’s dead, the lady might be more forthcoming about her relationship with Erica.”

“Why don’t you fly up?”

Carmine sneered. “Oh, sure! There’s no air service, and I can just see the Commissioner authorizing the hire of a plane.”

“Jesus, Carmine, sometimes you’re dumb! I’ll get you there and back in an FBI helicopter.”

“And that,” said Carmine grimly, “is why we small-time cops hate the FBI! Money to burn. Which is not going to stop me taking you up on the offer.”

“Tomorrow?”

“The sooner the better.”

“How’s your family doing in London?”

“Gallivanting all over the shop,” said Carmine, not about to tell this new ally that Desdemona and Julian were actually staying in a house outside a pair of villages called Upper Slaughter and Lower Slaughter. In fact, so paranoid had he become that he had fitted his home phone with a scrambler and conversed with Delia about his family in whispers. In some corner of his mind he wondered what the Carstairses thought when their phone was fitted with a scrambler too, but he didn’t care; no one was going to get at Desdemona and Julian again if he could help it.

“Pity you couldn’t stay with them a little longer.”

“Yes, but they’re safe, and having a great time seeing all the sights.”

“I’ve realized,” Ted Kelly said slowly, “the significance of the shots on that telescopic camera. Ulysses wanted to see how to get to your house by sneaking along the water’s edge. There’s no public access, all the properties go clear down to the water.”

“My interpretation too, Ted. Though he sent his assistant, who’s either fitter or younger or both. If he thinks we don’t know he has an assistant, sending him would let Ulysses establish an alibi.” Carmine gave a wry smile. “The odd thing is that hers isn’t the first body to wind up on that piece of land. A poor murdered teenaged girl was dumped there during the tenancy of the previous owner. That body was moved by a rowboat, whereas Erica was carried or dragged along the shore.”

Kelly was staring, astonished. “Jesus! Lightning does strike twice!” he exclaimed. “That was the Ghost case, right?”

“Yes. She was artistically arranged on the edge of the path, not anchored underwater.”

The FBI agent got to his feet. “Call me when you have a time set up for Philomena Skeps. I’ll have a chopper waiting at what Holloman calls an airport.”

Carmine grinned. “We do have weekday flights to New York and Boston,” he said. “Have you forgotten Chubb has a law school and a medical school that grow experts like a vacant lot grows weeds? There’s always a bunch of Chubb experts testifying in some court.”

What a difference flying made! Carmine was on the ground at a tiny airport for private planes in Chatham twenty-five minutes after rising precariously off the ground in Holloman. It was a curious sensation, especially staring down at the scene-often water-between his feet; the chopper was like a glass bowl inside and a mosquito outside. His pilot was a silent guy who concentrated on keeping the insect flying, though he did speak as Carmine alighted.

“I’ll be waiting here” was all he said.

A Ford Fairlane lookalike was parked by the fence, the keys in its ignition but not a soul in sight. Well, well, Carmine thought, the FBI wants Mrs. Skeps and Mr. Tony Bera to think I drove here in my cop car, ass sore and temper ruffled.