The Baker Street Letters (28 page)

He took out his mobile and rang Ms. Brinks in London.

She asked how everything was.

Reggie lied. He told her he now had what he needed to put an end to the whole mess—including the original survey map and the evidence to tie it to who had altered it. He would deliver both to the transit construction authority and to Mendoza. Between that and Mara's testimony, he would see Nigel clear of the mess—on both sides of the Atlantic.

Ms. Brinks asked if she could do anything more to help; Reggie told her nothing else remained to be done and hung up the phone.

Then he got up and went into the corridor.

He began looking into rooms again until he found a man who lay bandaged head to toe in light gauze, with catheters and intravenous tubes extending uncomfortably from his arms and groin. The man's forehead and one entire side of his face was covered, and Reggie wouldn't have been sure who it was.

But he saw Mara sitting at his bedside.

Her face showed a bruise on her right cheek and a deep sense of worry, but she seemed otherwise undamaged.

Reggie found a chair and sat down next to her.

“I suspected he had come back,” she said when she looked up. “Just a week after Lance Slaughter moved into the building, I began to notice this older man at the shelter—he'd just stand outside and stare across at my building all the time. At first it creeped me out. But he wasn't staring in the same way that some guys
will—he was just sort of . . . watching. And not so much watching me, as . . . well, watching out for me, it seemed like. Watching over my place. And once I began to suspect it was my father . . . well, I had to be real careful what I told anyone. I couldn't even go over to the shelter to try to talk to him; I was sure that would put him at risk. I had to watch out for him as well.”

Now Ramirez moved slightly in his bed.

“Hi, baby.”

“Hi, Daddy.”

Ramirez shifted his eyes to the side, noticing Reggie.

“You were lucky,” he said. “A few yards made all the difference.”

“Who was it?” said Reggie. “Who did all this?”

“It was Rogers,” said Ramirez. “You saw.”

“But who paid Rogers off?” said Reggie. “Who was the other man on the platform?”

“Never saw him. Rogers knew him, I didn't. Never saw him.” Now Ramirez became agitated and moved as if to sit up. “Anyway, I fixed it! I came back and fixed it!”

“Daddy—”

Ramirez slumped back into the bed, and his eyes closed.

“You can't talk to him anymore,” said Mara at his side.

“Your father killed Lance Slaughter. Did you know that?”

“Not for sure. I mean, not right away. But . . . well, yes. I suspected it.”

“Mendoza will still charge Nigel with it if he doesn't hear otherwise.”

Reggie saw her hesitate.

“I know,” she said. “When he comes to again, I'll . . . I'll ask him to tell me.”

It was only a moment's hesitation, between conflicting loyalties, and in Reggie's view it meant something that she gave Nigel such weight.

“Will that be enough?” she said. “I mean . . . to get Nigel free of this?”

“Your father can clear Nigel,” said Reggie. “If Mendoza hears his statement. But someone behind this—the money behind all this—will escape because we don't have the map.”

“I want whoever made this happen to pay,” said Mara.

She picked up her backpack from behind the chair and opened it. “I kept this safe for twenty years,” she said. “You think I would let it burn?”

She pulled out three rolled-up sheets of singed paper. Then she just held on to them for a moment.

“You better make good use of this,” she said to Reggie.

“I intend to,” he said.

She gave him the map.

Reggie left Mara with her father and returned to Nigel's room. He walked over to the bedside and looked.

Nothing had changed. Nigel was still unconscious.

Reggie turned and went back to his chair and was about to sit down. Then he heard Nigel speak.

“Bloody hell,” said Nigel. “How long was I out?”

Reggie returned to the side of the bed.

“Where is she?” said Nigel.

“She left a bit ago,” said Reggie. “Annoyed with me, I think.”

“Oh, I see. You meant Laura. I meant, where is Mara?”

“With her father.”

“She's all right?”

“Yes.”

“And Laura is all right?”

“Yes.”

“I hope everyone else is dead. The bloody dog, too. God, my head is pounding.”

“Join the club.”

“Don't tell Mara what I said about the dog.”

“Why in bloody hell didn't you contact me when you got out of jail?”

“I've made you either a suspect or an accomplice in two murders on two continents. I would think that would be enough contact. So when they let me out, I just went directly to Mara's.”

There was something possessive in the way he said her name this time, and there was not much room for misinterpretation.

“You mean you just showed up at her door, said, Here I am, take me in, and she said yes?”

“Pretty much,” Nigel said in an overly self-satisfied tone. “Isn't that how it always works for you with a beautiful woman?”

“No,” said Reggie, looking doubtfully at Nigel. “Not exactly.”

“Well,” said Nigel, retreating a bit, “perhaps it wasn't exactly that way. But something changed between the time you first spoke to her and the time I got out of jail. I think because she learned that her father had returned and was in trouble. She was looking for help, and I was there.

“We stayed at her place at first, but I had a sense the wrong people would know we were there. So I took her to the Roosevelt Arms. I know it's not the Bonaventure, but it's safe. Or at least I thought it was. And they accept pets.”

“Who posted your bail?” said Reggie.

“I wondered that, too, and I still don't know. I realized at the time that someone must be getting me out just so they could round me up and, they hoped, get the map. But just knowing that doesn't help. And apparently the clerk at the Roosevelt will tell anybody anything for a fee. Mara and I went to the Lankershim dig, looking for her father. They followed us there. Rogers and the other wanker had both me and Mara at once; they had the gun, and I couldn't risk doing anything.”

“Who was he—the other wanker?”

“I don't know. But I've seen his face before. I'm pretty sure
his photo was hanging in the café across the street. And Mara's attentive neighbor—keep forgetting his name . . .”

“Lance Slaughter.”

“He had a photo hanging there as well. Don't know if that means a connection between the two. You should ask Laura to take a look. She can tell a producer from a director from an actor at a glance.”

“Yes,” said Reggie. “I will when I see her.”

Nigel sat halfway up and peered at Reggie. “Have I been missing something?” he asked. “Is there a problem between you two?”

“There may be a problem.”

“Well, you've been a fool to let her ride for so long,” said Nigel. “I mean, Buxton, for God's sake.” He started to shake his head in amazement but immediately stopped. “Oww,” he said. “Bloody hell. I hope they have real drugs here and not some bloody holistic—”

“Have you ever considered,” Reggie interrupted, “how things might have gone between you and Laura if you had not invited me that time to see her at the Adelphi?”

Nigel stopped whining and stared at Reggie. “No,” he said. “Why should I?”

“No reason,” said Reggie.

“You remember what I was like,” said Nigel. “The state my career was in. Do you think I had the vanity to believe that a woman like Laura would marry someone with prospects like mine? I mean, yes, good looks count, but—”

“I'm sure she would have seen possibilities,” said Reggie.

“What? Since when do you regard my career as acceptable? And you know my work habits; I've been a poster child for attention deficit disorder since the day I was born.”

“Seems to me your prospects weren't so bad until . . . until after.”

“Until after . . . ?”

“You know,” said Reggie, waving his hand vaguely. “Until after . . . Laura and me.”

Nigel sat all the way up and looked at Reggie with a whole new kind of stare.

“How I botch my career is my responsibility, and my fun. And if I want to throw it away, that's my choice. What happened, did they transplant your cerebellum or something here?”

“No,” said Reggie. “At least not that I'm aware.”

“Dear God,” Nigel said, “please don't tell me you've been delaying Laura all this time just because you think you stole her from me.”

“Of course not. Especially if you put it that way,” said Reggie. “I've been delaying because I'm a fool. Idiocy is idiocy, Nigel, it doesn't have to have a deep-rooted psychological cause.”

“Exactly my point earlier,” said Nigel.

Reggie's mobile rang. He picked up.

He listened for a moment.

“I'll be there,” he said.

He shut off the phone. “That was Paradigm,” he told Nigel. “But not the production lot, where we wasted so much time. The real business end, in the tower next door.”

“And they called you because . . . ?” said Nigel.

“Because Ms. Brinks has been working overtime, I expect,” said Reggie. “Although there's still one piece that . . .” He thought for a moment, then said, “When you found that first letter in the archives—the one that came twenty years ago from Mara—you said it was misfiled in some way?”

“Yes,” said Nigel. “In its own folder, and out of sequence—not where you would expect it to be.”

“But Ocher said Parsons kept things in excellent order.”

“Not this one.”

“Out of sequence so that no one else would find it,” said Reggie, “and in its own folder so that the person who misfiled it could retrieve it quickly?”

“Possibly,” said Nigel.

“I'll let you know,” said Reggie.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reggie left the hospital.

He wanted to go directly to see Laura. Not just wanted, he knew in his bones he needed to. But between problems he thought he knew how to solve and problems that he was afraid he couldn't, his choice of which to take on first was always the same.

And he needed two pieces of information before going to Paradigm.

One was something any estate agent should be able to find for him. He rang the woman who had showed Mara's house. She told him to come right on over to the office.

Reggie took a cab, and along the way he called Mrs. Spencer in Theydon-Bois and asked her a question about Parsons.

“Why, yes, I was full-time, and he was a prospective temp. So I did indeed interview him before he was hired,” she said.

Reggie got from her the details of that interview and made a mental note to send her a thank-you basket if he ever got back to London.

Then he reached the estate agent's office, and the woman there greeted him happily. Apparently business was slow.

“You talked it over, didn't you? You like the house? I knew you would.”

“Well, no,” said Reggie. “Not quite. I'm actually here about something else.”

“Oh.” She recovered from her disappointment almost instantly. “What else can I help you with? I know of a really nice three-bedroom that would be perfect—”

“Five-fifty North Lankershim,” said Reggie.

She paused. “That's the Paradigm Towers.”

“Yes.”

“You're not really interested in buying a house at all, are you?”

“No. Sorry. Not at this time. But if you can help, I promise that if I ever come back to this—this—place—and buy a house—I will buy it from you.”

She paused for a moment, and Reggie thought he might have lost her. But then she laughed.

“What is it you need to know?” she said.

“Comparable values in the area now—and the price the land sold for before they built.”

She nodded, and began typing into a keyboard. After a few minutes she stopped and wrote some numbers on a slip of pastel notepaper.

“There you are.” She gave the paper to Reggie.

“You and your wife are such a lovely couple,” she said. “Come back as soon as you are ready.”

“Duly noted,” said Reggie. “Thank you.”

Reggie left the estate agent's office as prepared as he could be under the circumstances. Which was to say not fully prepared at all.

But he had gone into court many times with less.

He took a taxi north, over the Cahuenga Pass, headed for Paradigm.

The air had changed from the day before. He could feel it in his sinuses and in eyes dry as sandpaper.