Murder in the Smithsonian (16 page)

At midnight he received a call from his mother, who said, “I understand you had dinner with Kathy.”

“That’s right.”

“So?”

“So what?”

“What did you talk about?”

“Things.”

“Be careful.”

“Of what?”

“Of her. Remember what I told you when she left.”

“How could I forget?”

“People are strange, my dear. They seem to be one thing in the bright sunlight, but when night falls all sorts of strange sides come out.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Don’t talk fresh to your mother.”

“I’d never be fresh with you, Mama. I’m a dutiful, loving son.”

“I know you are, and that’s why I want you to watch your step. Women like Kathy are out for what they can get, no matter who gets hurt.”

“Mama, she’s the mother of your grandchildren.”

“And, she’s Baptist.”

“I’ve had a tough day, Ma. Thanks for calling.”

“Just be careful, Mac, that’s all I ask.”

Hanrahan smiled. “Are you sure you’re not Jewish?”

“Don’t be fresh. You may be grown up but I still remember you in diapers.”

The image made him feel the same way. “Go to sleep and stop worrying.”

“Give me a reason.”

“Because it’s late.

“I woke you. I’m sorry. Are you still working on that murder at the museum?”

“Yes.”

“Look for the woman.”

“Huh?”

“They say he was handsome, brilliant, rich, the sort of man a woman would kill for.”

“I’ll make a note.”

“Good. Call me once in a while.”

“I’ll do that. I love you, Ma. Good night.”

“Good night, Son. Be a good boy.”

“British Airways Flight 276, direct service to London, is now ready for boarding through Gate Number Three. Passengers traveling with small children may board first.”

Heather glanced at her watch as she put coins in a phone booth. Eight-twenty. Their flight would depart Dulles at 8:45, arriving the following morning at 8:45, London time. Killinworth was across the terminal buying a newspaper. He wore the largest tan trench coat Aquascutum made, and a red plaid rain hat that was too small for his head. From the rear, it occurred to Heather that the effect was like a cherry atop a mound of coffee ice cream.

“Hello, this is Heather McBean,” she said when her call was answered. “Is Chloe Prentwhistle there?”

“No, she’s not,” Ford Saunders said. He told her who he was.

“Oh, yes, Mr. Saunders… well, I wanted to ring her up to say good-by before leaving for London.”

“Did she know you were going?”

“I told her I intended to but wasn’t definite. My flight leaves in twenty minutes.”

“I’ll certainly tell her. Should I say how long you’ll be gone?”

“A week at most, I imagine. I’ll be staying at the Chesterfield in Mayfair in case she needs to contact me. I plan to spend a few days in Edinburgh the end of the week, at my late uncle’s castle, but I should be back by next Sunday.”

“Well, have a safe trip. I’ll tell Chloe when—”

“British Airways Flight 276 is now boarding…”

“I must run, Mr. Saunders. Thank you.”

Heather and Killinworth walked through a door leading to a large people-mover that took them to a waiting 747. A male flight attendant showed them to their seats in the Super-Club section, which represented a compromise. Killinworth had wanted to fly first class, where the seats would better accommodate his bulk, but Heather considered it an unnecessary extravagance since the club seats were just as large. “
Chaip
,” he kidded her, using the Scottish idiom for cheap. “
Wastrie
,” she’d responded. They sat two abreast. “
Twa in a raw
,” she said in Scottish, smiling.

The aircraft began its takeoff run, slowly at first, then gaining speed until it groaned into flight, eventually reaching its transatlantic cruising altitude of 39,000 feet. The captain announced that their arrival would be ahead of schedule because of a 155-mile-per-hour tailwind.

“Will you be staying at the castle?” Killinworth asked
after an hors d’oeuvre of garnished smoked Scottish salmon on buttered brown bread had been served.

“I’d like to,” she said, “although now that the conversation is under way for public access there’s just Agnes and she’s only there from time to time. I’ll see how the loneliness sits.”

“I might be able to get up for a day, perhaps an overnight,” Killinworth said. “Hard to say. It depends on how things go in London.”

“You never told me what business you’re on,” Heather said.

“Nothing of much importance,” he said, sipping white wine. “Are you certain you want to see this Paley chap?”

“Yes, I want to know what he’s found out about Lewis’s activities before he left London. I can’t help believing that that has some bearing on his death… I think Captain Hanrahan agrees with me.”

“Really? Well, frankly, Heather, I don’t much like that chap, although I must admit a certain bias against anyone who wears a badge.”

“That’s cynical.”

“Perhaps. But I can’t help thinking of your uncle’s alleged suicide, and the handling of it by the Edinburgh police. That was enough to turn even an optimistic soul like myself into a cynic.”

The captain announced that they were about to encounter air turbulence and that seat belts should be securely fastened. Killinworth fingered his belt, which was extended to its maximum length.

Heather looked out the window and watched the giant aircraft’s wings flex in the choppy air. She realized how much she missed London and Edinburgh. It would be good to be home, no matter what the circumstances or how short the stay. She needed to touch base again with friends, many of whom she’d met while
working at the British Museum, and once again to experience familiar places that had provided such warmth and pleasure. Her only reservation was agreeing to stay at the Chesterfield. Its bar and restaurant had long been particular favorites of hers, and it was in the Chesterfield’s private octagonal salon where she, Lewis Tunney and ten of their friends had gathered to celebrate her birthday and, it turned out, their engagement. At first she’d balked at Killinworth’s suggestion that they stay there. It would be too painful, she told him. But he convinced her that “the best thing to do after falling off a horse is to climb right back on. Besides, the Chesterfield has been like a home to you in London. I insist that we stay there…”

During the movie, which neither of them wanted to see, Heather napped. Killinworth read a succession of magazines provided by the flight attendants. Heather awoke as Killinworth struggled to leave his seat to buy something from the inflight duty-free shop—a five-pack of Henri Winterman half-corona cigars for himself, and L’Air du Temps perfume for her.

“How did you know I liked this brand?”

“A keenly honed sense of smell and an appreciation for the more genteel fragrances of life. Actually, my dear, I noticed it in your purse.”

Killinworth retrieved his double-breasted blue blazer and trench coat from the overhead rack as the captain announced they would be landing at London’s Heathrow Airport in twenty minutes. He struggled to get into them and was perspiring and breathing heavily when he sat down and buckled his seat belt.

“Are you all right?”

“The world was designed for midgets and skinny people,” he grumbled. “Yes, I’m all right. You?”

“In grand fettle.”

He looked at her and shook his head. “You should
discard any remnants of your Scottish linguistic past, my dear. It sounds too quaint.”

She laughed. “One thing Uncle Calum couldn’t stand was someone who speaks pan loaf.”

“What the devil does
that
mean?”

“An affected English accent. Calum was very proud of being Scottish, you know. He insisted that I be too.”

“You haven’t disappointed him.”

“I hope not.” She thought of her uncle… he
was
quintessentially Scottish, a highlander by birth, a Midlothian most of his adult life after moving to Edinburgh in his teens, proud and stubborn, hard as nails, often caustic and seemingly cold, but as Heather knew better than anyone, with a wide and deep vein of kindness, and love, that showed itself at odd times and in odd ways. She knew she was about to cry, took a deep breath and said lightly, “Allow me my Scottish phrases, Evelyn, at least in Calum’s memory.”

“Of course, my dear.”

They rode a moving sidewalk at Heathrow to Baggage Claim and Customs. Heather had suggested in Washington that they rent a car, but Killinworth had vetoed it. “In this world of chaos, confusion and man’s lack of civility toward his fellow man, the London taxi remains a linchpin of civilization. Of the myriad things I miss about London, it is the taxi that heads the list.” He’d even quoted a poem by Ogden Nash:

And so they rode a black London cab from the airport to Charles Street, in Mayfair, where Heather was warmly greeted by members of the Chesterfield’s staff. They were shown to their rooms, Heather’s on the second floor, Killinworth’s on the third. After unpacking they met for a drink in the library, a handsome, paneled room where guests could order from room service twenty-four hours a day. Heather said little. Killinworth seemed fired up over being back in London and indulged himself in a monologue on the role of Britain in the world community and the reasons for its decline. He might have gone on for a second hour if a group of Americans had not come into the library and sat down on couches across from them. The new arrivals obviously found Killinworth amusing, not only because of his bombastic, pontifical speeches but because he’d come from his room wearing a red-and-green oriental dressing gown over his trousers and shirt, plus red carpet slippers.

“I think I’ll get to bed,” Heather said. “I want to feel fresh tomorrow.”

“You go ahead, my dear,” Killinworth said, rising and gesturing toward the door. “Sleep well. We’ll breakfast together?”

“What time?”

“Nine.”

***

They had breakfast in the Buttery.

“One of those bloody Americans actually had the cheek to ask whether you were my daughter,” Killinworth said.

Heather smiled. “What did you say?”

“I said you were my sixth wife and the mother of my tenth and eleventh children.”

“You didn’t.”

“No, but I should have.”

“Well, time to get started,” Heather said. “Will I see you later on?”

“Depends on where you and I are later on. I suppose we could rendezvous for tea. What time are you meeting with the private peeler, Paley?”

She looked blankly at him.

“Private eye, gumshoe. Surely you know that bobbies were originally called peelers, after Sir Robert Peel. Why they changed it from his last name to his first is beyond my comprehension. It’s precisely the sort of thing I was talking about last night when we were interrupted by those Americans. Such changes in a people’s traditions, minor as a slang term for police officer might be, are typical of what erode the underpinnings of a society. If you go back in time you clearly see that…”

She listened until he paused to finish his tea, quickly stood and said, “I really must go, Evelyn. Will we meet here for tea?”

“No, the Dorchester. I prefer its traditional approach. You didn’t answer my question about your meeting with Paley. When does that take place, and where?”

“I don’t know. I’ll call him later this morning. Now don’t worry about me.”

“Well,” he said as they walked through the lobby and headed for the street, “if you change your mind, leave a message with the desk. I’ll call in.”

Heather insisted that he take the lone cab parked in front of the hotel. “I could use the walk,” she said. She watched him drive off, then proceeded briskly to Curzon Street, went north on Park Lane, the Dorchester
and Grosvenor House hotels on her right, the vast stretch of Hyde Park greenery on her left. She reached Marble Arch, where she was almost run over because she looked left instead of right before crossing the street. She had had the same problem in reverse in Washington, and had just gotten accustomed to being a pedestrian in a right-hand drive city when she left.

She reminded herself to look in the appropriate direction as she walked east on Oxford until reaching Tottenham Court Road in Bloomsbury. A few minutes later she stood in front of the neoclassical facade of the British Museum, Britain’s vast and most celebrated storehouse of past cultures and peoples, millions of items consecrated to the benefit of millions of yearly visitors.

She was hesitant about climbing the steps, just as she’d been reluctant to return to the Chesterfield, another scene of happy times and promise of more that had been destroyed with one fast, cruel thrust of Thomas Jefferson’s sword.

She entered the building beneath sculptor Sir Richard Westmacott’s Victorian frieze and looked to her right, where over ten million volumes, manuscripts, music scores and philatelic collections were stored and displayed in the galleries of the British Library, including the Magna Carta, Shakespeare’s first folio and the Gutenberg Bible. Directly in front of her was the British Library Reading Room, open only to scholars with special credentials. She rode the lift to the upper floor and meandered through galleries containing medieval, western Asiatic and Egyptian collections until she reached the prints-and-drawings section where she’d worked before Calum’s death.

“Heather,” a male voice said. She turned to see Bryan Mills approaching. They’d worked closely together, and he was one of her favorites. They shook
hands, saying nothing until Mills said, “I’m sorry, Heather, about what happened.”