Moriarty Returns a Letter (15 page)

So he had to move quickly; and although this stop was not his own destination, he felt instinctively that it was his last and best chance.

He got off the bus after her, and he opened his own full-size street umbrella and lifted it in one smooth, powerful motion, and swung it protectively above her as if they were in fact long-term traveling companions, and intimate ones at that.

“We can share if you like,” he said cheerily, matching her surprisingly quick pace. “You don’t want to catch your death.”

Just at that moment, as if the universe itself were in tune with his desires, the rain increased. She could hardly decline now; cold water was beginning to run in streams down the ringlets of her black hair. She would have to say yes. And next he would ask her to coffee, where it would be warm and dry.

When she turned to look at him, he saw the brightest emerald eyes he had every seen; he had thought he must be imagining things when he first saw her get on the bus, that they were just a trick of the light—but no, they were real.

She said, “Keep it in your pants, mate,” and she pushed the umbrella away.

She walked on quickly down the street, despite the rain. And the young man, though he had wasted his bus fare in making his move, somehow had the good sense not to chase after her.

The young woman walked on to the next block, where there was a taxi stand. She got in the Black Cab at the front of the queue.

“Where to?” said the driver.

She sighed deeply as she sat down, as though she had just now gotten home and safe.

“I do so love these vehicles,” she said, making herself comfortable in the spacious backseat. “I even love the smell of them.”

“I can’t take personal credit for that, miss.”

“Well, that’s good, I suppose.”

“It’s just the air freshener.”

“And I so admire how you drivers always know where you’re going.”

“And do you, miss? Know where you’re going, I mean?”

“Sometimes. But mostly I find that every day and in every way, I was wrong about something I thought I knew the day before. Especially in the last few months or so. I think there was a time when I was certain about things, but I don’t remember it very well. Does that ever happen to you?”

“I don’t think so,” said the driver. “But my question is—do you know where you want to go right now?”

“Ahh,” said the woman. “Yes. Scotland Yard. I hope you don’t need directions; I’m not good at them.”

“No, miss,” said the driver. “I don’t, and I can believe that you aren’t, given it’s only two blocks away. But it’s raining, so I’ll drive you there anyway. No charge.”

14

The rain tapered off, and then started again with a vengeance late in the afternoon. About the time it did, Reggie Heath received another call from Detective Inspector Wembley.

This time, when Reggie heard what Wembley had to say he did not need to be told that it was urgent. He immediately drove through the downpour to Scotland Yard.

He was unable to find a covered space for visitors, and he was forced to use the outdoor car park. He sloshed his way past the revolving
NEW SCOTLAND YARD
sign to the main entrance, and shook the water from his umbrella.

A sergeant escorted him to the observation area for an interview room on the second floor.

Wembley was already there, waiting. He nodded at Reggie and pointed toward a subject who sat alone in the room on the other side of the glass.

Reggie looked. He blinked, tried to absorb what he saw, and looked again. He stared. His chest tightened involuntarily.

“Bloody hell,” said Reggie, under his breath.

“It’s her,” said Wembley, nodding in the affirmative. “It’s Darla Rennie. So she says; we’re confirming her prints now, and it sure looks like her to me. What’s your opinion?”

Reggie hesitated before answering. He really had no doubt at all, but he just didn’t want to believe it. He stared through the one-way window, and then, as if she knew exactly at that moment that he was looking, she turned her head toward the glass and looked directly back.

Still the most startling emerald eyes Reggie had ever seen.

“It’s her,” said Reggie.

“I thought you’d know,” said Wembley. “I believe you had a closer look at her than I did at the time.”

The reference was to the events of six months ago, and it wasn’t nearly as close a look as some people had been insinuating, Reggie wanted to say. But he didn’t. There was no point in acknowledging hinted lies from
The Daily Sun.

“How did you apprehend her?” said Reggie.

“We didn’t. She just walked in this morning, of her own accord.”

“Did she say where she has been the past six months?”

“Yes. Shacked up with our murdered fisherman in Canvey. Except of course, she says, during the time at which he was killed. She says she wasn’t there when it happened. Says she just found him that way at the house and then got scared and left the scene.”

Reggie stared through the one-way window for a long moment, at the petite young woman, seated alone at the hard plastic table.

She looked back directly at Reggie again through the glass.

The look was all wide-eyed innocence.

“Do not let her out,” said Reggie, under his breath.

“We don’t plan on it,” said Wembley.

“When is the bail hearing?”

“In three days.”

“Laura and I will be out of town.”

“That’s fine,” said Wembley. “If you add the fisherman to the Black Cab murders, there’s not a magistrate in the city that would grant her bail. But when it comes to trial, I expect both you and Miss Rankin will be called to testify to what you know about the Black Cab case.”

“We’ll be back in plenty of time for that,” said Reggie. “And I wish the prosecution all the success in the world. Darla Rennie drowned in the Thames, or Darla Rennie locked away for life, either one is fine with me.”

Reggie turned to leave.

“Wait,” said Wembley. “One more thing.”

Reggie paused at the door.

“She wants to talk to you,” said Wembley.

“What?”

“Rennie said she’ll tell us everything we want to know. But first she wants to talk to you.”

Reggie looked through the window. Darla Rennie wasn’t staring back now; she was just sitting there, expectantly, as though she had just come in for a job interview.

“What the hell for?” said Reggie.

“She wouldn’t say.”

“Suppose I don’t want to talk to her?”

Darla Rennie looked for all the world as though at any moment she might just begin whistling a tune and tapping her foot.

“That’s your prerogative,” said Wembley. “But I think it would help us out. She claims to be a changed woman, Heath. She says that she remembers some things that took place in her life before she fell into the Thames, but not others. She pretty much promised she’d confess what she does remember, but only to you.”

“Why?”

Wembley shrugged.

Reggie thought about it just briefly, and then he said, “It’s a trick.”

“In what way?” said Wembley

“I don’t know. But if Darla Rennie asked for it, it’s a trick. Maybe she’s trying to disqualify me as a witness.”

“You aren’t
that
important as a witness. And if you get her to confess, we won’t need further testimony from you at all. Or Laura, either.”

Reggie considered that. If he and Laura could both be spared having anything further to do with Darla Rennie at all, that would be a good thing.

Still—it had to be a trick.

“Have you advised her that anything she says in that room is being recorded?” said Reggie.

“Yes, of course. She’s had all the proper warnings.”

“You know that she took medications to control her schizophrenia? Did you ask if she’s on them now?”

“Does it matter?”

“If she isn’t, that could be the trick. She’ll claim her confession wasn’t voluntary, because she was off her meds and couldn’t properly consent. I don’t think anyone’s ever tried that excuse, but I wouldn’t put it past her.”

“Well, in fact she is on them. And we have mental health professionals from the Public Health Service who say she’s competent. In fact, however bonkers she was when she went into the river, they said their initial opinion right at this minute is that she’s perfectly sane and has an excellent grasp on reality. I’ve already checked with the Crown Prosecution Service, and Langdon said it won’t be an issue. So stop making excuses, Heath. Just go in and talk to her. She won’t bite—probably—and you’ll have it over with.”

Surely there was some other objection to be made—but Reggie couldn’t think of it.

“All right,” he said finally. “But if she looks at me and I turn to stone, you’re responsible for shipping my cold remains back to Laura.”

Wembley nodded. “If that happens, Scotland Yard will be happy to pay the freight, no matter what it costs.”

15

A sergeant opened the door to the interview room and admitted Reggie.

The room was carefully and deliberately sparse, with institutionally neutral pale green walls. There was one heavy plastic table, a chair on one side of it for the interviewee, and two chairs on the other side—one for the interviewer and one for a third party who was usually required to be present but would not be this time, because that’s what the Yard had agreed to.

The constable exited, and Reggie was alone in the fishbowl with Darla Rennie.

She looked directly up at Reggie.

Reggie did not want to stare, but knew he could not let her think he was avoiding her glance, either. He looked back.

This woman had Darla Rennie’s face, but it had changed. The woman he had known before had an expression that was composed and controlled—as though impenetrably hiding something, though he hadn’t recognized that at the time.

Now her expression was composed and relaxed. But of course that was probably an act as well. She must have just gotten better at it.

The last time Reggie had spoken with Darla Rennie, she had been under the delusion that he was Sherlock Holmes, that her long-lost ancestor was the fictional villain known as James Moriarty, and the words she had said to Reggie at that time, just before abducting Laura in a Black Cab, were these: “I will take from you what you value most.”

Reggie had one goal now, and that was to make sure she would never get to try to follow through on that threat again.

Reggie pulled out one of the hard chairs and sat down across the table from her.

“Do you know my name?” he said.

“Of course. I asked for you.”

She smiled just slightly as she said it.

Reggie did not move. He said, “Tell me who you think I am then.”

“You are Reggie Heath, Q.C.”

“All right,” said Reggie. “Then you no longer believe that I am Sherlock Holmes?”

“No,” said the woman.

“You used to believe that,” said Reggie.

“So I am told. But I no longer have that delusion.”

“Do you know who you, yourself, are then?” asked Reggie.

“Are you asking how well I know myself, or are you asking my identity?”

“Let’s start with that second thing,” said Reggie.

She started to answer, and then she stopped. She said, “I’ve had a conversation like this already with the mental health professional. I will be telling you the same thing.”

Reggie nodded. “I would still like to hear it,” he said.

“Very well. I have researched it to some lengths at the National Archives, and at some other places, and although there are still some things that are uncertain, I can tell you who I am to the extent that my identity is defined by my lineage. My name is Darla Rennie. I am twenty-five years old. I was born in 1973. My parents were Donna and John Rennie, both killed in a car accident two years ago. My mother was an American citizen who came to London in 1962, met my father, married him, and acquired both his name and citizenship. My mother’s maiden name was Moriarty. She was the granddaughter of an American named James Moriarty the Second, who came here with the American army during the war and died in a German V-2 attack. His father was James Moriarty, an American who spent some time here in London, and who died in 1893.”

“And how,” said Reggie, very carefully and distinctly, “did that first James Moriarty die?”

Darla Rennie sighed and looked down at the table for a moment. She seemed to be gathering herself. She raised her head up and gave Reggie a direct and steady look. And then she said this, rattling it off as though it were a legal recital: “You are asking whether I still believe that my great-great-grandfather was the fictional James Moriarty who was killed in a fictional struggle with the fictional Sherlock Holmes at the nonfictional Reichenbach Falls in a nonfictional year more than a century ago. And my answer is no. My great-great-grandfather was indeed named James Moriarty, but he was not killed by Sherlock Holmes at Reichenbach Falls, and you are not Sherlock Holmes, whether fictional or otherwise. I have a firm grasp on all of that. You can ask everyone who has examined me. My delusions are gone.”

That statement was more direct and to the point than Reggie had expected. It took him a moment to absorb it.

“Then why did you ask for me?” he said.

Now Darla shifted slightly in her chair, glanced down at the table, then to the side, then down at the table again for a long moment. Then she sighed, and she looked up directly at Reggie.

“I just wanted to say that I am sorry.”

This was unexpected. Ordinary criminals would claim repentance when they were convicted and being sentenced, when they were certain they had no other choice but to pretend it. But Darla Rennie had yet to stand trial.

And she was not ordinary.

“For what?” said Reggie.

“For all the trouble I caused you and Laura Rankin.”

“Trouble? Is that how you characterize it?”

“I don’t mean to minimize it.”

“And what sort of trouble do you think that was? I mean, specifically? Keep in mind of course that you are being recorded.”

Darla glanced at the one-way mirror behind her, and then looked again at Reggie.

“Yes, of course,” she said. “I am fully aware of the things I’ve done, and as I told Inspector Wembley, I will confess to all of it.”