Jones had no doubt about what lay behind the offer. The police wanted to make sure she really did leave town, even going to the extent of providing an escort, it seemed. Under the circumstances she didn’t feel at all inclined to cooperate.
‘No thank you, detective,’ she replied. ‘I think I have endured quite enough New Jersey police hospitality for one day.’
She also had another reason for declining. She wanted to see Ed again, and not just for old times’ sake. She still felt there had to be something he could tell her that would shed some light on all that had happened, even if he didn’t know it.
Detective Grant seemed about to push the point. Then, as if on cue, into the foyer from the direction of the station interior came Ed. He spotted Jones at once, and a look she could not quite decipher spread across his face.
Was it concern? Or exasperation? Or a bit of both? She wasn’t sure.
‘What are you doing here?’ she blurted out without thinking.
‘What would you think I’m doing here, Sandy?’ He glowered at her. ‘I was brought here, whether I liked it or not, to convince the New Jersey police that you are who you say you are and not some crazy terrorist.’
‘Ah.’
‘What have you done to your face?’
Jones raised a hand to her injured cheek. She assumed that her eyes still looked red and puffy too.
‘I had an argument with a van.’
‘Oh.’
Ed couldn’t have sounded much less concerned. She wondered why he even bothered to make the enquiry.
‘Look,’ she began, ‘I was hoping to have another chat before I leave—’
‘Sandy, my two best friends in all the world have just died in the most horrible violent way. I feel as if my whole life is in ruins. And you want to drop by for a chat?’
‘Well, I just thought we could talk things through...’
‘Talk things through? No, Sandy. Everything those of us who believed in RECAP have worked for all those long years is finished. You left over twenty years ago, and you never looked back. Connie and Paul are dead. It’s over, for God’s sake. I don’t have anything more to say to you. To tell the truth, Sandy, I haven’t had anything to say to you since you walked out on me the way you did.’
He took off then, powering his way through the police station’s big swing doors, his back stiff with anger.
She watched him go with sorrow. She had wondered, when she’d visited him the previous evening, if there might be a chance of at least rebuilding their friendship. It now seemed clear that was out of the question.
Detective Grant stood silently alongside her, his broad fleshy face giving little away.
‘Maybe I’ll take that lift to Princeton Junction after all,’ Jones muttered.
Eight
At Princeton Junction, Detective Grant carried Jones’s bag onto the platform, in spite of her protests, and stayed with her until she was able to board an Amtrak train bound for Penn Station.
Jones really did feel as if she were being drummed out of town. She accepted, however, that it was largely her own fault. She had an IQ of 150. That meant that she was officially a genius, for Christ’s sake. But she had behaved stupidly.
She considered what she would do next. She supposed it lurked in the back of her mind that she wanted to pay her respects to Connie and Paul. Although she didn’t quite know how. There weren’t going to be any funerals. Not yet, anyway. There were, after all, no bodies to bury.
The Man in Black had made no secret of his desire that Jones should not only leave town, but also, preferably, the country.
Indeed, she would have been more likely to accept that the explosion might well have been a tragic accident were it not for the treatment she’d received at the hands of the Princeton police, and in particular the threatening demeanour of the mysterious Man in Black. Nonetheless that possibility remained, and in any case, what more could she do?
She switched on her mobile, for the first time that day. A string of messages awaited. She checked them in cursory fashion. Almost all of them were from various colleagues puzzled by her peremptory absence and the brief notes of vague explanation she had emailed to them. They could wait. Clearly neither her sons nor anybody else back home had been contacted by the American police, which was a relief. And if she were to take the obvious sensible course of action, she would be back in the UK the following morning.
She checked the time. It was three twenty p.m. She should be able to catch the evening’s BA flight to Heathrow easily enough. She called up the phone number for reservations, and then paused.
She hadn’t slept for the best part of forty-eight hours. She was bone tired. Her right shin was still very sore from the bashing it had received outside the RECAP lab. Her eyes were no longer inflamed, and the worst effects of the capsicum spray had worn off, but none the less her entire face felt sore. Her injured cheek was throbbing. She didn’t feel at all like a seven-hour flight.
When Jones had been in New York the previous year, giving the Triple A address, she had stayed for the first time at Soho House, the city’s hotel version of the famous London club.
Stretching her back and shoulders in a vain attempt to ease the tension, Jones found her thoughts focusing on the House’s superior plumbing. Most of the rooms had baths right in the middle of them, so that you could soak yourself while enjoying the state-of-the-art entertainment facilities, including a huge TV screen.
She shut her eyes and dreamed a little. The very idea of one of those baths was quite seductive. And after all, she thought, what was the hurry? She wasn’t being deported, even though the Man in Black probably wished that she was. She would book into the House, indulge herself thoroughly, and hopefully manage a good night’s sleep, before flying home the following evening. She would still be back in time to fulfil her BBC filming obligations and attend that Oxford dinner engagement.
She called the House. There was a room available. She confirmed it at once with her credit card.
The following morning Jones felt considerably better. She had slept like a baby. She felt almost like a human being again, and hoped she looked like one too. There was a mirror on the wall to the right of her big double bed. She turned towards it. Her face had thankfully returned pretty much to normal after the capsicum assault, just as Detective Grant had promised. There was no longer any soreness or swelling. And the injury to her left cheek, although not pretty, had not become as unsightly as she had feared.
Lazily she stretched her long legs beneath the covers, reached out a languid arm, dialled room service, and ordered tea.
It was barely six a.m. In spite of her total weariness, jet lag had caused her to wake early again. At least that meant she would have a full day to enjoy her favourite city after London. But first she switched on the TV, and tuned in to CNN to check the latest on the Princeton explosion, which turned out to have been relegated to fourth on the news list. And the item was certainly not revelatory.
New Jersey Police this morning refused to confirm or deny a report in today’s New York Post that the explosion at Princeton University earlier this week was caused by a gas leak. ‘Our investigations are continuing, and a full statement will be released as soon as possible,’ said a police spokesman.
So the police were still hedging their bets. Well, they would, wouldn’t they, thought Jones. Room service had brought two newspapers along with the tea she’d ordered. The New York Times and the tabloid New York Post. She unfolded the Post first. The splash headline jumped off the page at her.