The Avenue of the Dead (35 page)

Fleming saw the heading and ripped it open. The note was handwritten and quite brief. The signature was bold and emphasized by a heavy upcurving line. Fleming folded it and put it in his pocket. ‘How much did you tell him?' he asked in a low voice. He didn't even look at Humphrey Grant.

‘We told him nothing. Your own people are in charge now. They gave him some of the facts but certainly not all of them. He believes your wife has become a security risk because of her drinking. I think they passed some pretty broad hints about her morals too. His reaction was predictable, but I understand he was very sympathetic to you personally.'

Edward Fleming caught the nine o'clock plane to Mexico City, a representative from the White House Press Office flying with him. Kidson and Charlie were well to the rear of the plane. She squeezed his hand. ‘Don't look so worried, darling. You've hardly said a word since you came back yesterday afternoon.'

‘I'm sorry,' he said. ‘I've been rotten company, haven't I? Not much of a holiday for you, I'm afraid. It's just that there's something niggling at me, Charlie, and I don't know what it is. Something about the way this thing is shaping that I don't like at all.' He leaned his head back and sighed. ‘Never mind, we're only spectators now. Our part is finished. I just want to see Lomax pull through, and Davina safely back in England.' He raised her hand and kissed the fingers. ‘Then I'm going to devote some time to you, my sweet, and to Fergie. Have you missed him?'

‘Yes,' Charlie admitted. ‘Very, very much. He's got a way of worming his way into your heart that's just like his father. I spoke to Mother last night. She's not pressing me to come home at all. I don't think she wants to give him up.'

‘We could take a long weekend there if you like,' he suggested. ‘I think I'll have had enough of Washington and Mexico and the whole stinking mess. A few days at Marchwood would be very healing.'

Benson's interview with the Police Commissioner had gone very well. They were not friends, but they had been in contact over the years, and one thing Benson had always done was to defend the integrity of the Police Department, especially in Washington. For an anti-Establishment crusader this was an unusual attitude, but the commissioner and his colleagues in other major cities were too thankful to wonder what his motive was. However many other facets of American life he showed to be a can of worms, the police forces came out clean.

The commissioner didn't deny that the CIA had taken over the routine security of Fleming's private residence. He hadn't been told the reason, and added sourly that one thing about the American Secret Service was that so far as his department were concerned, they were sure as hell secret!

Benson became confidential and the commissioner smelled trouble for someone.

‘There are rumours spreading in New York,' Benson said. ‘My guess is they originated down here. And the rumours got to my editor. You and the Department have always played straight with me, Commissioner, and I'm a guy who pays his debts. Good and bad. We've heard that Edward Fleming's wife has disappeared. The word is she's dead and the CIA are covering it to shield her husband. Before I dig up any more dirt, I want to know what part the police have played in it. Or whether the boys from Langley have put you on the spot by hiding a murder.'

The word galvanized the commissioner, as Benson had expected. His department had no knowledge of Mrs Fleming's disappearance, and there had been no question of a cover-up so far as his men were concerned. He turned very red with rage and thumped the desk top, which secretly amused Dave Benson. It reminded him of an old James Cagney movie. Even the dialogue sounded period. ‘We know nothing about any cover-up of any homicide. You won't find a bent cop in my department!' After this it was easy to enlist his help in checking the exact date and time when the CIA threw their screen round Fleming's house. The commissioner hinted at a friend or two inside the Langley complex who might pass him information. Benson thanked him, and promised to make it clear that the police were blameless public servants.

When he left, the commissioner set to work. He was proud of his force and their record. The remark that had aroused Benson's private scorn was genuinely felt and happened to be true. His men were not corrupt, and nothing would have persuaded any one of them to conceal a crime, no matter how important the people involved. And that, he swore to his assistant later that day, included the cowboys at Langley.

Davina stayed at the British Embassy. The ambassador was extremely helpful, putting a car at her disposal and a young attaché to escort her to the hospital. Spencer-Barr called to see her the evening after they arrived. She had spent most of the day sitting in the waiting-room while Colin Lomax underwent an emergency operation. The surgeon was honest with her; he was a kind man, but he refused to deceive his patients or their relatives.

‘We have done all we can,' he said. ‘But the damage was terrible – the bullet disintegrated inside and destroyed his right lung area, apart from three upper ribs. There is extensive laceration of muscle and tissue and some of the fragments were very close to the right ventricle of his heart. He lost a lot of blood and suffered massive shock. If you hadn't found the doctor at Tula who gave him the transfusion, he would certainly have died.' Seeing the expression in her eyes, he said cautiously, ‘But he is a strong man, senora. Now it is up to nature, and to him, if he recovers. I think it would be better for you to go home and sleep. Otherwise we will have another patient on our hands.'

She couldn't sleep; images raced through her brain, and her heart hammered with anxiety. One lung gone, extensive damage, massive shock. The words mocked her and repeated themselves until she felt she couldn't stay alone another moment. She got up and went into the little sitting-room they'd given her, and when the young attaché said that Jeremy Spencer-Barr had called to see her, she was almost glad. He was as smoothly self-confident as ever. She couldn't believe she had cried in his arms and blown her nose on his handkerchief only the night before. He was a dangerous man, deceptively stiff and British, in spite of the concessions to American clothes and the faint accent that crept in with certain words. A pale, fair tiger, with a tiger's heart.

‘I called the hospital,' he said. ‘They told me he's holding his own. I'm amazed. But it seems he takes a lot of killing.' He hesitated, and fiddled with his shirt cuff. ‘You did a marvellous job. We've found out quite a lot about her in the last few hours. She's English-born, came to Hollywood when she won some talent contest, and never made the grade. Her name was Betty Russell, changed to Elizabeth Rowe. I remembered seeing her in one or two films – she wasn't bad.'

‘So we discovered,' Davina said. ‘Is she sober?'

‘Up to a point,' Jeremy said, and his thin lips smiled. ‘She's more talkative after a few drinks. We've told her what she's got to do, and she agreed rather quickly. In exchange for certain guarantees.'

‘Her safety?' Davina asked sharply. ‘You made a deal after what she did and what happened to Elizabeth Carlton?'

‘I made a deal,' he answered smoothly. ‘In exchange for a press conference with Edward Fleming to announce their separation. He's arriving tomorrow. With your sister and brother-in-law, by the way. It's going to be staged with maximum publicity. I told her it would be her biggest role. She liked that.'

‘I don't want to hear about it.' Davina turned away from him.

Jeremy shrugged. ‘Then don't concern yourself,' he said. ‘She's our problem now. I'll tell her.'

‘Tell her what?' Davina swung round to him.

‘She keeps asking to see you,' he said. ‘That's really why I'm here. We feel it would help to keep her in line if she could talk to you. She's got some notion you're a friend.'

‘Has she really? She must be out of her mind.' Davina lit a cigarette, and her hand shook as she held the lighter.

‘You won't help?'

She drew the smoke deep into her lungs. ‘I'll get a coat,' she said.

There was a security guard outside the door of the room on the second floor of the American Embassy. Spencer-Barr showed his ID card and the man opened up for them. Jeremy strode in first. ‘I've brought Miss Graham,' he announced.

She was sitting in an arm-chair with her legs tucked underneath her; she was smoking and there was a glass half-full of whisky by her elbow.

Clothes and make-up had been provided, her hair was swept up in its normal style, and the voice when she answered was Elizabeth Fleming's. She was back in her role. But the face was haggard and strained under a coating of tan base, and the big blue eyes were bloodshot.

‘I didn't think you'd come.' She took her glass and swallowed greedily. ‘At least they're not trying to stop me having a drink if I want one.'

‘So I see,' Davina retorted. ‘Why did you want to see me?'

‘I want to know what the score is,' she said flatly. ‘I don't trust that slimy bastard. Where do I stand with your people?'

‘You don't stand anywhere,' Davina said. ‘You're out of our hands now. As for not trusting Spencer-Barr, I think you're very lucky to be offered any deal at all. Whatever it is.'

Elizabeth uncurled her legs and stood up, and for the first time Davina noticed the small, elegant feet. ‘Oh, I'm getting the works,' she said. ‘I give a press conference with my dear husband Edward and explain that though we still love each other, of course, we've got problems and we're separating for a while to see if we can work them out.' She laughed suddenly – it was a coarse little chuckle. ‘What a lot of bloody hypocrites you people are. The lousy CIA and the rotten SIS. And the KGB,' she added. ‘I trusted them. I worked for them and I believed they'd look after me. You stopped that gorilla Rose from killing me, didn't you?'

‘Yes,' Davina said quietly.

‘I've thought about that,' Elizabeth said. ‘I knew you weren't lying when you told me they were going to kill me. So I decided to save my skin and co-operate. And when I've played the big scene with darling Edward, I'm going to take a trip to Europe and fade out of view. And I'll get a new face and a new life. Funny, isn't it? The same payoff from both sides. And
they
have the gall to talk about morality and freedom! You know something? You were the only one I felt I could have trusted.'

‘Why didn't you?'

She laughed again, the same sneering giggle from the back of her throat. ‘Because I hated your guts,' she said. She began to pace up and down the room, waving her cigarette about as she talked; it was like watching someone on a stage. ‘I learned all about her,' she went on. ‘I learned about her home and her family – I knew the name of every bloody aunt and cousin, and all about life at that smart school you went to. The staff and the pupils, and you. You were the clever one, the blue-stocking, she called you. “Mousey”. Mousey Graham. And your sister – she was friendly with her, wasn't she? Oh, I read the script and I was word-perfect, wasn't I? You must admit, I took you in!' She stopped and dropped her cigarette into a flower bowl. ‘How did you find out?'

‘You went wrong everywhere,' Davina said evenly. ‘Except I didn't see it because they'd done such a good job on your looks. Liz Carlton was a charming, feminine woman as well as beautiful. She had taste and education. I kept thinking, what's happened, how could she have turned into a drunken, foul-mouthed creature like this? It was my sister Charlie who found the clue. She knew Elizabeth Carlton's shoe size. It didn't match the shoes in your cupboards. Two sizes too small, I think they were. So we started thinking again.'

The woman swore. She finished her drink.

‘She had feet like soup plates,' she said. ‘Nothing I could do about that. I hated her, you know? I hated everything about her. The more she talked about her background and her childhood, the more sick I felt listening to it. She was doped to the eyebrows. She poured it all out while we recorded it, so I could learn the part. And I kept thinking of the lousy town where I grew up. The dullest, meanest little place on earth. Nothing to look forward to but marrying some clown with a steady job and turning into a frump like my mother and my married friends. I wasn't going to end like that. I had looks, and talent. I
knew
I could make something of myself. But she never had to struggle for anything. The good fairies were at her christening all right!' She poured herself another drink. The ice clattered into the glass and some of the whisky slopped over. She sat down and looked up at Davina.

‘I didn't think they'd hurt her,' she said slowly. ‘Before God, I never thought they'd do her any harm.'

‘Just turn her into a drug addict. Is that what you call not doing her any harm? I don't believe you – you just didn't want to know.'

Elizabeth rounded on her fiercely. ‘O'Farrell told me she'd be kept at the clinic,' she said. ‘Listen, drugs don't frighten me! I spent fifteen years in Hollywood. People pay thousands of dollars to get stoned. But I wouldn't have gone along with murder. That's why that Indian lied to me.'

Davina didn't argue. It was possible she was telling the truth. ‘How long were you working for the Russians?' she asked. ‘I'm not asking for anybody but myself. What made you do it?'

‘Money. I wasn't getting parts, and I was running out of the few dollars I'd put by. It wasn't too difficult. I laid a few selected people and encouraged them to talk. That was the start of it. Then this came along. Quetzalcoatl, they called me. The Plumed Serpent. It sounded pretty dramatic – the acting part of a lifetime, learning to live someone else's life, marry the guy who fell in love with the other woman, keep it going for eighteen months, and lay the paper chase for your SIS at the same time!'