The Nassau Secret (The Lang Reilly Series Book 8) (5 page)

11.

85 Albert Embankment

London

14:22 Local Time

The Next Day

              The futuristic pile that is home to England’s Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, is familiar to fans of James Bond films, having been featured in over half a dozen of them.

              On the sixth floor with a view of the Thames through a single bullet proof window, Alred James sucked contemplatively on the pipe he was no longer allowed to smoke inside the building. He looked longingly at the others in the rack: Two ornately carved meerschaums, several briars and a calabash. He was particularly fond of the latter. It conjured up images of the world’s greatest (if fictional) detective: Sherlock Holmes.              

              James had been with MI6 since his Oxford days, nearly forty years past. Retirement and a civil service pension seemed to be coming on with increasing speed daily.

              Retirement.

              He could devote more time to the prize winning roses that grew around the cottage on Kiln Lane in Betchwort, Surrey. Wobbly brick floor that had seen the feet of three centuries, smoke blackened beams, inglenook fireplace, sharply slanted tile roof that had replaced thatch only a decade ago. Once there, carbon emissions, clogged streets and crowded tube seemed a world rather than just a border away.

              Retirement.

              He looked forward to it but there was a final task he owed his country before he swapped his Bond Street suits for cardies and Wellies, a task the hierarchy of MI6 knew nothing about. It was, as they say, “off the books.” Only he and a handful of other employees of the agency were in on it, only those who were members of the highly secret St. George Society.

              The society espoused and practiced patriotism, the kind that had gone out of style as the British Empire shrunk and then morphed into the absurd commonwealth, a group of nations whose only real tie to England was that they had been former colonies. Although the queen appeared on many of their stamps and currency, they bore no real loyalty to her. Not unless you considered as loyalty the constant stream of illiterate, crime-prone, poverty ridden immigrants who lived off the dole in counsel housing.

              As for the Queen. . . who really showed respect for the royals anymore? Not since Dianna, Fergie and the lot of them had revealed themselves as so much Euro-trash.

              The Society had put paid to that or at least part of it in the
Pont de l’Alma
underpass in Paris. Oh, there had been a the few loose ends, the burst of bright light a couple of witnesses reported, witnesses easily discredited. And the white Fiat Uno whose paint matched that left on the Mercedes. The owner, photo journalist James Anderson, had been found dead in a burned and locked BMW. The keys were never located.

              Loose ends or not, the possibility of the future King of England having a Moslem for a half sibling, of WOGs running around Buckingham Palace, no longer existed.

              Service to the crown frequently went unrecognized or appreciated.

              There was a tap at the door and a white fringed head poked in. “Sorry I’m a bit late.”

              Alred beckoned. “Come in, Nigel, come in!”

              Nigel Smythe’s appearance might tend toward the elfin with barely five feet in height, tiny hands and feet and a perpetual smile that seemed to say he knew a secret. As indeed he did. Quite a number of them but they were hardly the stuff of fairy tales unless one includes the Brothers Grimm.

              Nigel had a long and storied history with MI6, including his most recent project, discovery of the hiding place of former Lybian strong man, Muammar Gaddaffi, and turning that bit of information over to the rebels who had just toppled his government, the botched attempt on the life of Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic in 1992 And the more recent assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Mostfa Ahmed. Paradoxically, his “face” job, the one MI6 showed him as holding, was head of I/Ops, the office that seeks to make publicity favorable to the agency available to the press.

              Nigel crossed the room and helped himself to a selection of tea bags and a cup that he filled from a pot on an electric ring. The MI6 building might be ultramodern but there were some of the old amenities Alred refused to surrender. Like one’s one personal tea making equipment.

              Tea cup in one hand, Nigel produced a device resembling one of the older cell phones, a black box slightly larger than a pack of cigarettes with a stubby antenna. A series of four red lights lit in sequence as he turned slowly.

              Alred shook his head. “You know very well this office is swept for bugs daily.”

              Unabashed, Nigel completed his 360 degree circle and sat in a worn leather wing chair. “Quite true, old chappie but who might bug the debuggers, eh?”

              Alred nodded his consent if not approval. “Yes, yes,” he said impatiently. “What news from across the sea?”

              “Our friend met with an unfortunate accident. He has a ticket home later today.”

              “And the source of the problem?”

              “Even more unfortunate accident but it appears the problem is solved.”

              “Permantly?”

              “We’ll have to see, won’t we?”

12.

All Saints Episcopal Church

634 West Peachtree Street

Atlanta, Georgia

Two days Later

              All Saints was established in 1901 at the northern edge of a city still struggling to rebuild from its total incineration in 1864. Even Washington DC had its private buildings spared by the British in 1814 but not Atlanta. Up to and during the mid- 1950’s the congregation was white, upper middle to upper class and well to do, including many of the City’s more prominent citizens.

              Today the red stone, semi-Romanesque structure is in Atlanta’s eclectic Mid-Town. On Sunday mornings it is filled, not with ladies in hats and gloves escorted by men in suits but by same sex couples who tend to hold hands during the service and are dressed more for the golf course than for an ecclesiastical service. The gay, lesbian and just plain outré are joined by a smattering of Georgia Tech students from the campus two blocks away who come to hear the magnificent organ and enjoy an interior reflective of Medieval times with its bright red ceiling dotted with religious iconography.

              The present parishioners had earned the once staid old church the sobriquet of All Sorts.             

              This was not a Sunday but the sanctuary was filled with those who looked like they might belong, absent the Tech students. Lang Reilly drew a gentle poke in the ribs as he shifted in the hard wooden pew for perhaps the twentieth time since the clerical-garbed minister started reading from the Book of Common Prayer, commending the soul of Livia Haynesworth to a Merciful Savior.

              He gave Gurt an “I can’t help it” shrug and turned his attention to the elaborate floral displays that graced the altar and choir stalls. The attendees kept him from total boredom. Hair colors were every shade of the rainbow and a lot that weren’t. Body piercing and visible tattoos were the norm not the exception for both sexes. He speculated that, in ten or fifteen years, about the time the youngest of this avante-guard crowd started to seek serious employment, removal of body art would be a thriving business.

              Mercifully, the service ended and Lang and Gurt filed out, going from vestibule into the narrow porte-cochere, so narrow only the smallest of contemporary cars could have driven through were the old driveway still there.

              “There’s a reception in the parish house,” Gurt reminded him.

              Lang inhaled deeply. “Smell those onions? How ‘bout lunch at the Varsity?”

              One block west and just across the expressway from Tech, The Varsity had been around almost as long as All Saints. A true 1950’s style drive in, it advertised itself as the largest in the world as well as the largest single seller of the famous local product,
Coca-Cola
and serving the world’s best hot dogs. Lang was unsure of the first two but, like most native Atlantans, had no doubt about the third.

              “It might be best to at least sign in.”

              Lang acknowledged the wisdom of getting credit for attending the service by taking her arm and leading her across a putting green of a lawn.

              Inside, Celeste and a couple Lang guessed were Livia’s parents formed a brief line meeting the guests much like a reception line at a wedding. Lang was reminded of the similarity of the two services, the major difference being this one was by far more likely to be permanent.

              A soon as Celeste spied Lang, she broke ranks to embrace him in a smothering bear hug. “Lang, I haven’t had the chance to thank you for referring me to Phil McGrath. What with Livia. . .”

              She broke into tears. “I don’t think I can go on!”

              Lang somehow slid loose, all too aware of the debilitating nature of grief. As his first wife had slipped further into the grips of incurable cancer, he had realized the promises they made to each other as to the good times they would share once she was well were little more than lies in the form of placebos. When she had finally succumbed, the relief he experienced that she suffered no more made him feel guilty. The moment he returned from the funeral to the small cottage in the Virginia-Highlands area of Atlanta, the starkness of the empty house had all but crushed him. His best friend was gone, the woman who worked two jobs to help send him through law school. She would never enjoy the benefits of practice that seemed to grow daily. As he had stared at the pictures on the walls she had selected, the fabric she had picked out for the sofa one rainy afternoon she had succeeded in dragging him along, the chair in the bedroom worn from her head as she read her romance novels, he had, for the first and only time, given serious consideration to a voluntary departure from a life both cruel and unfair.

              Lang Reilly knew grief.

              It was a place as much as an emotion. One rarely visited voluntarily but departed by sheer strength of will coupled with a healing process not unlike recovery from a physical wound.

              Lang Reilly knew grief.

              He had found himself there again when his only living relative, his sister Janet, and her adopted son and Lang’s best ten-year-old buddy, Jeff, had died in Paris. This time he had not heard the siren song of self-destruction but he had still grieved as he had for his wife.             

              Gently holding Celeste at arm’s length lest she envelope him again, he spoke with sincerity. “Believe me, I know what you’re going through, Celeste. I also know you’ll get through it. I’m not saying it will be easy or there won’t be ups and downs but you
will
get through it.”

              She swallowed hard as though trying to choke down a bite too large before extending a hand toward the couple behind her. “Excuse me, I’m forgetting my manners. This is Jean and Claude Haynesworth, Livia’s parents.” He turned. “Claude, Jean, this is Lang Reilly, the man who recommended the private investigator I told you about.”

              The woman, eyes red rimmed, extended a hand. Her face was an older version of her daughter’s. “Happy to meet you, Mr. Reilly. I really want to thank you.”

              Her hand was dry and felt fragile, like holding a small bird. “You are quite welcome. But I really didn’t do anything, just suggested. . .”

              Jean’s eyebrows arched. “Oh, no. I meant, thank you for agreeing to go to Nassau and find out who killed our daughter.”

              Lang was too stunned to say anything for a full second. Then he daggered a glare at Celeste. “I, I. . .I think there’s been some sort of . . .”

              Gurt spoke for the first time, accusation in her tone. “Lang, when did you agree. . .?”

              “I didn’t. This is the first time I’ve heard anything about it.”

              Claude and Jean’s stares at Celeste were as damning as an indictment.

              A moment before Lang filled a very awkward void. “Mr. and Mrs. Haynesworth, I don’t know who said what but I’m a lawyer, not a detective. I do know from experience that local law enforcement usually resents intrusion into their turf. It’s quite possible sending someone else down there could hinder, more than help, the investigation.”

              “If you really believe in those cops in comic opera uniforms who couldn’t solve the death of Humpty Dumpty, Lang, you are more optimist than realist.”             

              He had never heard Celeste speak with an undertone of anger.

              And she wasn’t finished. “It looks to me that even if you don’t care who killed Livia, you’d care about who put your pal Phil McGrath in the hospital.”

              Lang glanced at Gurt. He wasn’t going to get help from that quarter. He cleared his throat, not because he needed to but to give him an extra nano-second to think. He began in his most reasonable tone, the one he used when trying to convince a jury of the highly improbable. “Celeste, I know this is an emotional time for you, but think: As far as I know, no one has determined Livia was murdered.”

              Celeste gave a derisive shake of the head. “The more shame on them! If you’re suggesting I accept the theory that she went about as far from our hotel as possible without leaving the island to go swimming in her clothes where there’s no beach. . .”

              “No one said she was found where she died. The tides and currents. . .”

              He was not to be allowed to finish. “Lang, believe what you will. You know her death has murder written all over it. If you won’t help get justice for her, I’ll find someone who will! Now if you will excuse me, I have other guests to attend to.”

              With that, she stalked off, her very back exuding anger.

              Thirty minutes later, Lang and Gurt sat at school desks in one of the four rooms the Varsity provides its customers, each with a different network on a television mounted on the front wall. Neither cared about the TV, the two were the only seats they could find together.

              Gurt looked at Lang’s paper plate with clear disapproval.

              “What?”

              “Two hot dogs heaped with chili, fried onion rings and a fried peach pie washed down with an orange drink with ice cream floating in it? You would want Manfred to eat like that?”

              Lang used a paper napkin to wipe a bit of chili from his chin. “Manfred isn’t here.”

              “The calories and cholesterol are.”

              “The Varsity hasn’t been here since 1928 by selling tofu.”

              “Why do Americans call them ‘hot dogs’ when they are actually sausages?” she wanted to know. “They do not resemble, say, Grumps.”

             
Thank God for small favors.

             
Gurt’s very literal Teutonic mind had not totally embraced the American idiom.

              But he said. “I think back when they were invented, someone thought they looked like a dachshund.”

              “So does almost every other
Wurst.”

             
From experience, Lang knew she had something other than frankfurters, wieners or hot dogs on her mind. A discussion of the banal was usually a prelude to something he wasn’t going to like. 

              Gurt almost disdainfully nibbled at her Naked Steak, a plain hamburger and changed the subject. “You disappointed your friend Celeste.”

              The onion ring stopped halfway to Lang’s mouth. “Disappointed?  I never even intimated I’d go to Nassau.”

              “I can see why she might think you would. She is one reason you never spent a dime on advertising.”

              Lang returned the half devoured onion ring to his plate, staring in bewilderment. “The reason I’ve never advertised is,” holding up his forefinger, “one: I’ve got plenty of business and,” holding up the index finger, “advertising is the province of personal injury sleazebags who operate on a volume basis: get a case in and get it settled, never mind if trying it would be better for the client.”

              Unperturbed, Gurt took another bite. “She once called you, what was it? ‘The cream of the white collar defense crop.’ It was right before that the mayor hired you to defend him.”

              “Ex mayor and we don’t know that article had anything to do with his decision to retain me.”

              “And it was right after you got that man off for stealing from the bank and her article . . .”

              “Embezzlement was the charge and he didn’t do it.”

              “Whatever, it was right after that man who did all the mortgage frauds . . .”

              Lang had forgotten the onion ring. “Are you suggesting I should drop what I’m doing and go Nassau? I mean, we made a deal years ago: No more getting into dangerous situations, no more endangering ourselves. For Manfred’s sake, remember? No risking him becoming an orphan.”

              Gurt dabbed at her lips with the paper napkin. “I think you owe this woman Celeste.”

             
No mind hobgoblined by foolish consistencies here. In fact, no consistency at all. But then, womankind in general and Gurt in particular were not noted for the trait.

              Lang guessed he was in for a trip.