62
It takes Mitzi twenty minutes and a whole lot of bribery to persuade Amber that she isn’t the mother from hell. It takes twice as long to do the same with Jade.
Ruth is predictably cold when she’s told that the overnight stay in Washington is going to be stretched into a transatlantic trip that most likely will last another week.
Years of being a cop tells Mitzi her younger sister is more than just pissed about being put on. She sounds depressed, angry and confused and Mitzi wishes she were there to help her work through the mess with Jack.
Once the call’s done, she sinks another brandy miniature and bins the bottle. A mirror on the wall of her tiny hotel room throws back an almost unrecognizable woman with black eyes, a fire-truck-red nose and unattractive strap of white plaster. The only consolation is they straightened a crooked break delivered by her ex’s fist half a decade ago.
Mitzi thumbs through a room-service menu and intends to order only a chicken salad and milk but somehow a side of fries and a slice of pecan pie get added.
While waiting for the food, she calls Donovan and updates her on everything from Irish’s death to her conversation with Gwyn and the need to go to London.
‘Your timing’s good,’ says her boss. ‘Eleonora got a break on the satanic killing. She’s with the cops and they’ll be bringing charges within the hour.’
‘Lucky her. Who was it down to?’
‘Brother of the husband. You weren’t far off with your initial guesswork. She’ll tell you the story when you’re back. Point is, Bronty can be freed up, if you think he’d be of help to you.’
‘Given all the religious connections, I’m sure he would be.’
‘Thought so. You want him here, or do I send him UPS to London?’
‘London would be better. Is he going to be okay with making a trip like that with so little notice?’
‘About as okay as you were.’ Donovan waits a beat. There’s something she needs to make her lieutenant aware of. ‘You know that we’re going to draw heat on this. British diplomats have friends who are American diplomats who have friends in the justice system who pull strings in every puppet theatre from the grubbiest station house to the Oval Office.’
‘Yeah, I can imagine how it might play out.’
‘Good, then you know that I need you to be smart. I’ll keep them off your back as long as possible, but if I tell you we have to pull out, you pull out. No tantrums. No shit storms. Agreed?’
She’s too tired to fight. ‘Agreed.’
‘Remember you said that, because if you leave me hanging on this one, that car crash you’ve been in will feel like a day at the spa when I’m done with you.’
63
Mitzi eases her physical and emotional pain with some retail therapy.
By the time she settles on the Airbus to the UK, she’s assuaged herself with the purchase of several packs of Calvin underwear, a red button-up long-sleeved top and a navy-and-white striped shirt to go with a long milled wool skirt in the same colour, a pale-blue V-neck lambs’ wool jumper and a matching T-shirt to wear beneath it.
It’s been a long time since she’s bought wool but she has no intention of freezing in those crazy British temperatures. Given the option, she’d never even visit a country that thinks seventy degrees is a good summer’s day.
The transatlantic trip turns out to be more bearable than the internal flight was from San Francisco to Washington. No screaming kids around her. No warring families dug into the trenches of coach-class seating. By the time she’s had a deep Ibuprofen-induced sleep and watched several weepy movies, the plane is hitting the blacktop at Heathrow, or Hell Row as she heard the cabin crew calling it.
It’s gone midnight when she clears customs and finds her way to the airport Hilton. No sooner does she set the digital clock by her bed and crash out than it’s buzzing and flashing with all the urgency of a nuclear alarm.
It’s seven a.m.
Mitzi can’t believe six hours vanished in a blink.
Her shoulders and neck have stiffened post-car-crash, especially on the side where the safety belt jerked tight on impact and prevented her being thrown around the tumbling vehicle like a rag doll in a washing machine.
She puts on the new skirt and striped shirt and finds it doesn’t really go with the lamb’s wool jumper like she hoped. Worse than that, the black rings around her eyes are now so dense and circular they look like some joker painted them on her face while she was asleep. Her nose has also swollen more and turned black across the fracture. She uses a bathroom mirror to fix a new dressing and tells herself, ‘Mitz, you’re gonna have to give up that dream of pulling a royal husband while you’re here.’
Around eight she heads downstairs to breakfast. She has an hour in which to meet up with Bronty, brief him, check out and be in reception to meet the ambassador’s driver to take them to their meeting.
A young woman stood by the restaurant door takes note of her room number and shows her to a table for two, which by no accident is in the far corner where she can’t frighten other guests.
Bronty turns up soon after a young Polish waiter has left her with a pot of black coffee and a sympathetic look. The FBI man’s dressed in caramel-coloured cords and a pink Lacoste polo shirt. He has a cable-knit brown sweater draped over his shoulders.
‘Sweet Mother of God,’ says the ex-priest as he settles at the table. ‘What happened to you?’
Mitzi puts her cup down. ‘That’s your one free cheap shot. Now, do you want coffee? Or do you want to push your luck with more questions about the face?’
64
The tinted windows of the armour-plated Range Rover give Lance Beaucoup and Jennifer Gwyn the sinful luxury of holding hands without worrying whether bodyguards in the following car might see them.
They travel north along coastal roads, past Avonmouth, then west over the Second Severn Crossing, skirting Newport and into the six hundred square miles of wilderness that is the Brecon Beacons.
The four-by-four rumbles into a rugged landscape of forests, fields, lakes and mountains. It’s a stretch of countryside that is the among the most guarded in Britain.
Jennifer runs a finger gently over the ridges of Lance’s scarred knuckles as he grips the steering wheel. ‘What are these? Evidence of a misspent youth?’
‘Fights won and lost. Childhood scuffles and adult battles. I remember each and every wound.’
She puts him to the test. ‘This?’
He glances at a shiny white bridge spanning the first and second knuckles of his left hand. ‘A brawl in a Parisian bar. My best friend’s twenty-first birthday.’
‘And this?’
He looks at a sliver crease the length of his little finger. ‘Ah, that was a fall from my girlfriend’s Vespa.’ There’s a hint of nostalgia in his voice. ‘I was seventeen and she nineteen.’
‘And pretty?’
‘Very. We hit a patch of oil and I came down hard on my hand. Fractured my collarbone as well. It hurt a lot, but not as much as when she left me for a married man.’
‘C’est la vie,’ says Jennifer. ‘Love sometimes ends in people being hurt.’
He takes a beat, looks at the road ahead and then asks, ‘Will you hurt me one day?’
She grips his hand tightly and smiles sadly. ‘You know I will. Ours is a love that will break both our hearts.’