Every law enforcement agency in Europe as well as the United States would have a reason to be looking for Lang once the fingerprints were lifted from the umbrella and it was traced back to Fortnum and Mason. Being part of a couple wasn't going to be sufficient cover, anyway, once the constable got to a police artist who could draw Heinrich Schneller's face.
Once run through Interpol, the fingerprints would put the Herr Schneller persona to rest for good.
Lang pocketed the cash Gurt had left in the room's safe, wrote her a note he knew was inadequate, and left.
Crossing the Mall to St. James's Park, he spent a few minutes pretending to watch the birds on Duck Island. No one else showed an interest in him or the waterfowl. He walked along Whitehall and the edge of the brown pea gravel of the Horse Guards' parade ground and the Paladin facade of Banqueting House, the site of royal revels. That princely party boy, that swinging sovereign, Charles I, had been beheaded there. Today, Lang wasn't nearly as interested in history as he was in anyone who might be following.
Of course, the fact he couldn't see Them didn't mean They weren't there. Lang appreciated Their cleverness.
Jenson's killer could have killed Lang in the shadows of the shop. In a country with fewer annual homicides than, say, Montgomery, Alabama, such a murder would have raised more questions than merely the death of the antique dealer would have. They had arranged to have Lang sought as the culprit.
Once Lang was in custody, he suspected They would know where to find him. A criminal organization with members in America and Europe would have access to police records and, quite likely, any jail in which he might be incarcerated. And what could he do? Who was going to believe a suspect· in two murders who raved about international conspiracies and secrets hidden in pictures? Clever.
Lang used a doorstep to pretend to tie his shoe, taking the -opportunity to look behind without being obvious about it. A group of Japanese, cameras clicking amid bird-chirp voices, stopped to photograph everything in sight. Lang left them behind as he turned right, hoping to disappear among the traffic, pigeons and milling crowd that was Trafalgar Square.
Lang had at least one advantage, small though it might have been. They didn't know about the bloody paper with the company name on it, presumably the source of the painting. They had killed Jenson to stifle the vary information They had overlooked.
At Charing Cross, a huge shopping plaza and office building rose over the Underground station. Lang stopped at a public phone, an uninteresting steel box similar to the ones in the States. Most of the old red phone boxes had long since become decorations in bars in the U.S., he supposed. At least that was the only place he still saw them. Unlike American phones, the directory was still attached. Lang found the number and dialed, keeping an eye on the small bag of possessions he had brought from the hotel.
By the time the brief conversation was complete, an anemic sun had broken through the clouds, its appearance more aesthetic than warming.
Once he hung up, he continued down The Strand until he reached the Temple Bar Memorial, an iron griffin that marked the place the actual City of London met Westminster, two of the municipalities generally lumped together as "London." Here The Strand became Fleet Street, the former center of London's newspaper publishers.
Lang wasn't here for newspapers. For that matter, the press had long since departed for the suburbs: shorter commutes, lower rents and more modest salary demands from unions.
One last check behind him and he turned into a narrow street, more of an alley, Middle Temple Lane. From here an even more confined byway led to a small park surrounded by the buildings of the Temple Bar, the site of the offices of almost every barrister in London.
Lang let his memory lead him up a marble staircase worn uneven by centuries of clients seeking potential rectification of injustice and certain diminution of their money. At the top, a half-glass door bore flaking gilt letters, "Jacob Annulewicz, Barrister."
Barrister Annulewicz's business spilled into the shabby waiting area. Two chairs covered in a chintz popular in the 19405, worn almost beyond recognition, overflowed with stacks of paper. Files were piled on a much-abused table. The secretary's desk was surprisingly neat, its peeling veneer visible under an over-sized computer monitor, the only indication Lang was still in the twenty-first century.
If there was one, the secretary was gone, dismissed for the duration of Lang's visit.
"Reilly!"
An older man stood in the doorway to the inner office, dressed in a black gown, a starched white split dickey at his throat and a short white periwig perched on an otherwise bald scalp like a bird's nest on a rock.
"Jacob!" Lang set his bag down to return a bear hug. "When did you join a Gilbert and Sullivan revival?"
Jacob stepped back, releasing enough pressure to allow at least shallow breathing. "Still the smartass, I see."
"And you're still defending the indefensible," Lang said, indicating the robe."What's with the costume? I thought you only wore it to court or with a mask on Guy Fawkes's Day."
"And where do you think I was just before you called, the Mayfair Club?"
"Not unless they've substantially relaxed their membership requirements."
Jacob beckoned Lang into his office, a small room that reeked from the briar pipes dead in an ashtray. "Not likely," he said without rancor. "Still no women, Jews or Labour MPs. And you have to have a letter from at least five members, two of whom must be deceased."
Jacob's office was as cluttered as the outer room. He moved a stack of files to look under it, set it down and lifted another. This time he uncovered a small wooden box into which he put the wig.
"Clubs. It is still difficult, being one of Jehovah's chosen among the Gentiles."
Lang moved papers from a chair and sat on genuine Naugahyde. "From the looks of your waistline, you haven't encountered any good pogroms lately. I take it you're still away from the Promised Land by choice."
The son of Polish Holocaust survivors, Jacob had been taken to Israel as a child. He subsequently immigrated to England, becoming a British citizen, an act that did not deprive him of his Israeli citizenship but made him a prime candidate to become one of the Mossad's undercover agents stationed in friendly and unfriendly countries alike.
If history had taught the Jews anything, it was the uncertainty of alliances with goyim. Consequently, they spied on friend and foe alike with admirable evenhandedness.
Jacob's brief had been to keep an eye on Arab diplomats in London, to pass along to his handlers the snippets of information from which the tapestries of international affairs are woven. The information might or might not be passed along to the intelligence community of the United States, which hosted no Iraqi, Iranian or Liberian embassy of its own upon which to spy.
Somewhat less well known was Jacob's ability with explosives, learned during his time in the Israeli Army before his migration to England. Unconfirmed rumor had it that he was the one who had gotten into the hiding place of one of Hamas's more notorious terrorists and wired T4 to the telephone's dial. The next call blew the man's head off without so much as cracking the mirror on the wall. True or not, Jacob had the reputation of being the duke of detonation, a prestidigitator of plastique.
The Americans as well as the British had suspected his duties included spying on them as well. All potentially aggrieved parties – CIA, FBI, MIS, MI6 – agreed he was now retired, no matter how odd his choice to spend his final years in the practice of law that had been his first love, or, odder still, his preference for London drizzle over Mediterranean sun.
Jacob opened doors behind his desk, revealing a small cupboard, counter and gas ring upon which sat a teapot. "Still lemon, no sugar?"
Lang had to smile. "Age hasn't taken your memory."
Jacob poured into porcelain mugs. "Not entirely a blessing. I can still remember whom I dislike but my eyesight's gotten so bloody bad, I can't see the blokes coming." He opened a tin and shook his head sorrowfully. "Out of biscuits, I'm afraid." He extended a steaming mug and lit one of the malodorous pipes. "So brief me on the last ten years, Langford. You might include the reasons for that ridiculous moustache, what I hope are false jowls and that dreadful German-made suit."