Brian Freemantle - Dead End

‘You’ll let me know, if you hear anything?’ pressed Rebecca’s uncle.

Parnell brought himself back to the older man beside him. ‘If I hear anything.’

The service was in a Catholic church in Bethesda and there was an already waiting cordon of television and stills cameras, which jostled into action as the mourners formed up behind the flower-draped coffin to file into the church behind it. The priest was young and bearded, which Parnell considered odd until accepting it to be yet another irrational reaction. Parnell allowed his mind to wander during the service, believing it a brief and welcome opportunity to release the self-imposed, exhausting tension. He caught snatches, though, disjointed references to violence and tragedy and young life savagely cut short, intermingled with insistences upon God’s infinite wisdom and mysterious ways. He stood and sat in time with everyone around him who stood and sat, and matched with them the opening and closing of his blurred hymn book, from which he didn’t try to sing. There was more filming when the procession moved towards the grave, which Parnell, bringing his mind to bear once more, realized was that in which Rebecca’s mother and father were interred. The aunts and the niece wept on during the dust to dust, ashes to ashes ritual. So did Giorgio Falcone. There were probably others whom Parnell didn’t see. They all threw individual flowers into the gaping hole. Falcone plucked a lily from a waiting wreath and offered it, and Parnell dropped it into the grave, without looking down into where Rebecca’s body lay. As he turned back towards the grieving family with whom he had been standing, Parnell saw that his commemorative flower had come from one of the Dubette wreaths. His spray of white lilies and his handwritten card – Goodbye, my love to be – had been relegated to the second row of the banked floral tributes, behind Dubette’s elaborate creations. Determinedly Parnell reached forward, bringing his into the front, unconcerned at the flurry it caused among the hovering media.

There was an uncertain hiatus around the graveside, which Parnell finally stirred himself to resolve, leading the immediate family back towards the waiting cars. As they walked, Falcone said: ‘I wonder how many will come back?’

‘Come back?’ echoed Parnell.

‘I’ve closed the restaurant for the reception. You didn’t hear the priest invite everybody?’

‘No,’ said Parnell. It was already difficult for him to remember what he had or had not heard. The moment he relaxed he had the impression of his awareness ebbing and flowing.

‘He did. It’s expected.’

‘Of course.’ Parnell discovered, almost with a jolt, that he was back in the funeral car and assumed they were heading into Washington. He clenched his hands as tightly as he could to achieve a physical sensation, something on to which he could lock his mind to stop him drifting from what was happening around him, and he contorted his face, squeezing his eyes shut, for the same reason. It helped, just, but Parnell wasn’t sure how long it would last. A touch on his arm brought him around to one of the no longer crying aunts, who said in a heavily accented voice that she thought it had been a wonderful service, and dutifully Parnell said he thought so, too. She added that she was sorry for his loss and that he and Rebecca would have made a wonderful life together, and Parnell nodded but didn’t reply.

The Wisconsin Avenue restaurant had a Closed notice at the window and the blinds were drawn. A black-suited Ciro, whom Parnell hadn’t seen at the funeral, unlocked the door, shepherding the staff in ahead of everyone and turning on the interior lights. It was not until he saw Falcone assembling the rest of the family mourners that Parnell appreciated that there was going to be a receiving line. He held back until the Italian beckoned him forward at the arrival of the others. As Parnell joined the line, the man said: ‘You count as family.’

The handshaking, unheard commiseration ritual seemed to last forever and Parnell was embarrassed by it, glad when it ended. He moved away at once, taking from Ciro the offered glass of red wine, so full he needed to sip before carrying it more safely further into the room, tightening his self-control to face – and understand – the impending ordeal. At once he was conscious of Barry Jackson’s supporting presence at his elbow.

The lawyer said: ‘You look rough.’

‘So you keep telling me.’

‘So you keep looking. Specific problem or just everything?’

‘Constantly watching my back, I suppose. And not sleeping.’

‘You could get something to sleep.’

Parnell snorted a laugh. ‘I work for a drugs company and I don’t take drugs. How’s that for irony?’

‘Stupid,’ said Jackson. ‘If you’re not sleeping properly you can’t work properly. Or be as self-aware and careful as you’ve got to be. Take a pill.’

Across the room, Howard Dingley and David Benton were moving among the Dubette contingent, nodding in head-bent concentration. Both were wearing subdued blue today. Following Parnell’s look, Jackson said: ‘They come back to you yet?’

‘Not yet.’

As if on cue Dingley detached himself and crossed to them. As he arrived he said: ‘Making plans to come out to Dubette.’

Jackson said: ‘You’re going to need to talk to my client again, of course.’

‘I’d think so,’ agreed the frowning FBI man.

‘I’d like to be there.’

‘Why’s that, Mr Jackson?’

‘To represent him.’

Dingley smiled, fleetingly. ‘I’ll have to remember to appoint you as my lawyer if ever I get into trouble.’

‘My client’s not in any trouble, but call me any time.’

No trouble apart from being a potential murder victim, thought Parnell. He said: ‘Anything come up since we talked?’

‘Nothing that helps join the dots together,’ dismissed the agent.

‘What about Rebecca’s house? You’ve been through the house. Her uncle told me.’

‘You’re not next of kin, Mr Parnell.’

‘I’m the person who was going to marry her and got wrongly arraigned for her murder and whom your partner a couple of days ago agreed it was worthwhile to talk things through with.’

Dingley sighed. ‘We picked up an address book and found a listing in Arlington for an Alan Smeldon. He left there about a year ago. The couple who took over his apartment think he went to California. He didn’t leave a forwarding address.’

‘Nothing else?’ persisted Parnell.

‘Like I said, nothing that takes us forward,’ refused Dingley. ‘Everything kept very neat and tidy. That’s what Ms Lang was, very neat and tidy. You thought of anything that might help us, Mr Parnell? A friend of Ms Lang’s, maybe.’

Parnell shook his head, unsure when he’d last had a comprehensible thought. But then, abruptly, the clouds cleared in his head, to a moment of crystal clarity. ‘The key!’ he exclaimed. ‘You asked Giorgio Falcone for the key to get into Rebecca’s house. But she had one, in her purse. Would have had to have had one, when she left me, to get back into her house!’

‘There wasn’t one among the property Metro DC police surrendered to us,’ said Dingley.

‘Did you and your partner do the search?’ asked Jackson, entering the conversation at last.

‘Yes,’ said Dingley.

‘You find any evidence of someone having been there before you?’ persisted the lawyer.

‘We didn’t,’ said Dingley. ‘But we’ve got forensics there now. They’re better at finding out the little things than we are.’

Seventeen

R ichard Parnell thought one of his better successes – maybe even his only success so far at Dubette – was perhaps his refusal to be distracted by the fame-or-fear procession up and down the open-plan, glassed corridor to Dwight Newton’s lair. He would have ignored the bustle that day, too, if Beverley Jackson’s remark hadn’t included an FBI reference. Parnell looked up in time to see company lawyer Peter Baldwin hurrying towards the vice president’s innermost office, leading two briefcase-carrying, dark-suited men.