“We don’t,” said Jonathan. “She gets her meals, a place to live that’s relatively safe, medical care, and she attends camp school three days a week.”
“Ah, I see. One of your friends. Someone whom you’d trust with your wife’s life.”
Case closed, thought Jonathan. He had no rebuttal. The verdict would be swift and damning. The defendant, Jonathan Ransom, is found guilty of recklessly endangering his wife. The sentence mandated for such a crime was death. But not his. Emma’s.
She turned onto her side and he noticed a long scar on her back, just above her kidney. He traced it with a finger. “This is serious,” he said, sitting up, taking a closer look. “What happened?”
“Oh, that. It’s nothing,” said Emma. “I fell and cut myself, that’s all.”
The scar was five inches long, expertly stitched, and still puffy. “This was a deep incision,” he said. “A surgeon did this work. What kind of fall was it, exactly?”
“It was nothing. Some broken glass, I think. Don’t get yourself all worked up.”
He knew she was lying. “Worked up?” he said. “I think about you every day. I wonder where you are and if you’re safe, or if I’ll even see you again. Then you show up out of the blue with a nasty scar on your side that you won’t tell me about and act as if we’re teenagers sneaking away from their mom and dad. How long do you expect this to continue? Am I supposed to live like a monk pining for you until one day some man or woman I don’t know shows up and tells me you’re dead?”
“No,” said Emma, much too reasonably.
Jonathan fell back. “And you can’t come with me?”
“No.”
“And I can’t go with you?”
“I don’t think that would work.”
“Then what, Emma? Tell me what will work.”
“I can’t.”
“What do you mean?”
Emma looked at her watch and bolted upright. “Shoot! We’ve got to get you back to the hotel.”
“Not yet. Not before you give me an answer.”
But Emma was already standing. “We’ve been here much too long. There’s a car downstairs. Get dressed.”
“Okay, okay. Give me a second.”
Grasping his hand, Emma led him to the first floor and out the rear of the building. On the pavement her actions grew crisp, disciplined. Her head turned to the left and right. She was in the open, which meant she was in danger.
They walked to a black Audi parked two blocks up the street. Using her remote key, she deactivated the alarm, then climbed into the driver’s seat. Jonathan circled the car and slid into the passenger seat. Neither spoke during the drive to the hotel. She dropped him a hundred meters from the entry. He tucked his head into the open window. “When will I see you again?”
“Tomorrow,” she said.
“For sure? How will I find you? Should I ask Blackburn?”
“Probably not a good idea,” said Emma. “We’ll find you. Now, go. And good luck with the speech. Don’t be nervous. You’ll do fine.”
Just then a car honked. Emma threw the Audi into gear and accelerated into traffic.
Jonathan watched the car disappear, then walked to the hotel. He had barely stepped inside the lobby when a rotund, serious man hurried over to him. He wore a gray pinstriped suit with a carnation in his lapel. “There you are, Dr. Ransom. We’ve been waiting ages to speak with you. Where have you been?”
“Taking a walk in the park,” said Jonathan. “I needed some air. Jet lag.”
“Of course.” The shorter man placed a hand on Jonathan’s elbow and led him toward the reception. He was bald, with a ruddy complexion and dark, intelligent eyes. “Did you get my note?” he asked. “I scribbled a little something on your program. I thought it might be wise for us to coordinate plans before your speech tomorrow morning. The concierge assured me it had been sent up to your room.”
“Your note?” Only then did Jonathan remember the elegant penmanship. Looking forward to saying hello. Will require a few minutes to discuss your remarks. “You sent the program?”
“Why, yes. Who did you think?” When Jonathan didn’t answer, the man continued. “I do hope the accommodations are to your liking. Some of the members think it’s a bit grand, but I believe we need to sequester ourselves in a discreet environment. We’re physicians, not plumbers. Can’t expect us to meet at Earls Court. But enough about that. How was your flight in? Everything go all right?”
But Jonathan didn’t answer. He was no longer hearing the man’s words. He’d finally gotten sight of his host’s name tag.
It read “Dr. Colin Blackburn.”
10
“I can’t comment on Robert Russell’s work for our firm,” said the self-assured, arrogant man sitting across the desk from Kate Ford. “All of our contractors are employed on the basis of absolute confidentiality. It’s not that we don’t care to help with your investigation, it’s that we can’t. Rules are rules.”
Sixty with a crown of thinning hair, bifocals perched at the tip of a hawkish nose, Ian Cairncross, director of Oxford Analytica, fixed Kate with a bored gaze. The two were seated in his office at 5 Alfred Street. From next door at the Coach and Arms pub, the din of the evening crowd climbed the walls of the cobblestone alley and into the open windows. For ten minutes Kate had listened to a lengthy history of Oxford Analytica.
The firm had been founded thirty years earlier by an American lawyer who had worked as Henry Kissinger’s assistant in the Nixon White House. While completing his doctoral work at Oxford, he’d stumbled on the idea. To his eye, the pool of dons and scholars at Oxford represented an incredible confluence of world-class experts on everything from economics to political science to geography. If he could harness this expertise, he could put it to work answering questions of utmost import to governments and multinational corporations around the world. He wanted the dons to analyze problems ranging from forecasting the future price of oil to guessing who would succeed the next Soviet premier. For all intents and purposes, Oxford Analytica was the world’s first “overt intelligence agency.” And that expertise was available to all comers, provided they agreed to OA’s not insubstantial fees.
“The Met has rules, too,” said Kate. “We’re also forbidden to reveal details concerning cases we are presently investigating. For example, I’d be remiss in telling you that Lord Russell was keeping a loaded pistol in his desk at the time of his murder and that he was unable to make an effort to use it against his assailant. I’d also be remiss in telling you that Russell suffered a very nasty bump on his head before falling off the balcony which might or might not have fractured his skull. And I have no right whatsoever to reveal that whoever was waiting for him when he returned home last night at two-forty in the morning not only managed to get past three doormen and a security guard monitoring cameras that covered every square inch of the building’s public spaces, but also defeated a state-of-the-art alarm system tied in to the best private security firm in London. And the worst part is this: we have no bloody idea how the assailant got out, because Russell’s alarm was still hot when we arrived. I can, however, freely offer my opinions,” said Kate. “Would you care to hear them?”