Wilderness of Mirrors (14 page)

A strange image.

Two wonderful women. One strawberry blonde, the other platinum. Both lovely, witty, and intelligent.

God, he was a master at letting the big fish go.

His foot skidded on gravel and the rigatoni was a less than distant memory.
Christ,
he’d be two stone heavier before he left London. He needed a workout or he’d be killed by a too-quick Chihuahua.

Dinner was to have been the light end of the day’s hectic seesaw.

So what the hell were Nigel and Sam up to?

The unusual turn of events worked his mind like tumblers inside a convoluted clock. Sam had driven Nigel back from her appointment. Yet his friend hadn’t known she was doing work for Kate. It must have seemed outrageously coincidental.

At last the pier gates came into view, their lights haloed by the night’s damp. Those on his barge were glowing as well.

Nigel was back.

Maybe Sam wanted her own billionaire. Brad tapped the code and slipped through the gates. Or more likely someone with
joie de vivre
. Nigel didn’t have much of it these days.

Brad jogged the ramp, remembering when there’d been more. There was a time in Morocco when he and Nigel had rented Arabian-Berber horses. They’d almost killed themselves galloping along the arroyos veining the Atlas Mountain foothills. That night, they’d eaten chicken tangine and sauced themselves on fresh water. Slept in the mud-bricked barn with their mounts and dreamed about the ranch owner’s daughter. A devilishly figured girl with almond eyes and ebony hair.

“Kicked you out, did she?” Brad called as the door swung inward.

Nigel, recovered in pallor by a few degrees, read by the fireplace. “Who would that be then?”

Brad shucked his shoes and headed for his bedroom. “Fuck you.”

His friend’s chuckle followed him down the hall. When Brad reemerged, he wore a pair of sweats and a tee-shirt. “Have you seen my trainers?”

Nigel’s eyes never left the book’s inner cover. “I thought you were the one playing ‘mother’, hiding the family liquor and all.”

Brad spotted them behind a chair. “That’s C and Munroe. I just want to keep my job. I don’t give a fuck about your well-being.” He dropped to lace his shoes.

“Then I’ll have to stop by and have a chat with C.”

“Sporting of you. Apparently you’ve also pissed off some new doctor.” Brad flashed a smirk. “Well done, old man.”

Nigel dipped his head. “I aim to please. I’ll exasperate Monroe next.”

“Beat you to it.”

“Ah.” Nigel held up a finger. “But you argue with an Italian flair that makes it slightly amusing. Eccentric even. I’ll play mind games with him until he has himself committed.”

“How very British of you.” Brad let out his legs and pulled on the tips of his toes. Bloody hell, he was tight.

“I thought you told Kate I was back.”

Brad grunted as his he slid downward. “Who did?”

“Eden Jones. Apparently she saw us at the airport.”

“Name doesn’t ring a bell.”

“It wouldn’t.” Nigel stood and slid Brad’s book back on its shelf. He’d been reading BLUE, a work co-authored by Sam and her uncle. Brad wondered if Nigel had been surprised by its contents.

“She was Kate’s roommate at Cambridge,” Nigel explained.

“Talkative creatures.” Brad remembered the pair now.

“Mmmm. Not like your Sam.”

Brad took his feet. “She’s not anyone’s Sam.” He knew that well. In that way, she reminded him of Nigel.

A grimness gathered around Forsythe’s features. “Where did you say you two met?”

“Alan Vicker’s wedding. I let her think I was the pianist. Why?”

Nigel ignored him. “What about a bloke: tall, fiftyish, fairly good looking, carries an ankle holster with a 9mm handgun?”

“Connected with Sam?”

Nigel jerked his head. Brad recognized the look. It was one he counted on in tight spots. “Does he drive a Beemer?”

“Yes.”

Brad yanked his cap from the end table. “I think you met Wellington Turner, ‘Boots’. Her late mother’s boss at
The Times
. Fancies himself Sam’s godfather. Checks up on her now and then.”

“And the gun?”

“I never met him, so I don’t know why he carries it. She just told me about him one morning. Laughed about his ridiculous two-seater.” Too late, Brad regretted his choice of words. ‘Morning’ hadn’t done positive things for Nigel’s manner.

Forsythe’s eyes were dead cold. “Did you intend for us to meet? Or are you still interested in her yourself?”

“What the fuck is the matter with you? Sammy and I are friends. That’s all. I thought you two might get on. You’re exasperatingly alike. I don’t care what they say about opposites. If you’re not interested, just tell her.”

Nigel’s chokehold on anger loosened a bit. “We’re going to dinner tomorrow.” Though there remained an odd hint of harm in the set of his mouth. Maybe he had been concussed.

“Let me guess. L’Osteria?”

“Exactly.”

Brad headed for the door. “You’re a bastard.”

“Never forget it.”

Sam bumped into Valentine’s Day when Jane, prostrate with depression over Dan’s latest transgressions, said, “Single Awareness Day sucks.”

“Oh, shit.” Sam said.
Shit, shit, shit!

Jane recovered somewhat. “Sounds interesting.”

Sam thought back to the night prior, wondering how the hell everything had gone so badly wrong. If only she hadn’t given in to temptation and gone to see Brad. “Disastrous is a better word.”

Jane rolled her hand, dark eyes shining with a hunter’s delight. “And?”

“I didn’t remember today was Valentine’s Day.” It sounded stupid, even to her. “Well, I did, theoretically, but I didn’t remember when we were having dinner last night.”

“You, plural pronoun, had dinner last night? Where? And who is we?”

“My place.” She was feeling sick now. “It’s not what you think. He’s Kate’s brother. You remember, the Duchess of Barkley, the woman you were supposed to meet yesterday.”

Jane wasn’t so easily derailed. “Go on.”

“I gave him a ride back from Barkley.”

Jane’s eyebrows continued their impossible rise. “This was y
esterday
afternoon? We’ve been working here all morning and you didn’t think to mention it until now?”

“The good news is … ” Sam interrupted, “Kate and David loved it.”

Jane’s smile was chilly. “Flattery is passé. Talk.”

What can I say?
“Um…he doesn’t look at all like Kate, not that that matters. Anyway, I brought him to my place and he made dinner.”

“He made you dinner?” Jane crossed her arms. “Why don’t I meet men like this? Dan’s never made me dinner. What’s his Christian name?”

“Nigel. He’s an actuary.” He’d told her that after swallowing a forkful of pasta. “Travels a lot. He likes to cook and he made dinner to thank me for driving him back to the city.” The memory raced through her mind like water through her fingers.

“Where did you learn to cook?”

“My grandfather.” He swished a slab of bread against sauce. Chewed slowly, his jaw muscles working like machines. “He was stationed in Sudan, under Major-General Platt. Spent a lot of time with an Italian POW and learned a good deal more about cooking than your average Yorkshire boy.”

“Did he return to England after the war?”

“No. He ran a Kenyan gaming preserve where I spent summers. Among other things, he taught me about garlic.”

Jane was still talking and Sam was surprised the world was filled with daylight, not firelight. “What’s tonight for then, eh? You thanking him for him making you dinner? You’ll be married before you know it just being grateful to one other.” She pulled the borrowed hat from her bag. “Here. I do remember some things.”

Sam suddenly wanted to show it to Nigel. To ask him if he had any mementos of his own. But she said, “Look, I’m starving.” She grabbed the cap and placed it into her yawning bag. “I can’t think straight. Lunch?”

Jane dropped from her perch. “Sounds divine. But I won’t cook for you, because I actually care about your health and well-being. And you will pay so I’ll be able to say I went out for a meal bought by someone named Sam.”

“It’ll be a threesome.” Tam rose like a wave.

“Ooh, bestiality.”

“Cover your ears, Tam; Auntie Jane’s being disgusting.”

Nigel clicked off his mobile and entered the Vauxhall Cross SIS building through one of its many concealed entrances. He’d hoped his nephew, William, would have called him back by now, but given the lad had sounded irritable and half-asleep when first he’d rung, he rather doubted it. Probably up half the night studying for an exam. He’d try him again later, when they were both done with the day’s responsibilities.

Today Nigel had chosen T8, the entrance that branched from a Laud Street dental suite. It was ten minutes before he made the main building, another five before C’s secretary ushered him into a waiting room. His chest might have been leak-proof, but it twanged when he parked himself on the nail-studded sofa.

He kept his legs out, crossing them at the ankles, and closed his eyes. Someone had decorated the place since last he’d visited.

“Mr. Forsythe, you may go right in.”

Leave it to the old bastard to let him get reasonably comfortable.

Nigel waited until he felt Ms. Ganapathy’s hand on his knee. Let them all think he’d fallen asleep. That way, they’d fire him and he could bake in Sam’s sauna for the rest of his life.

“Mr. Forsythe?”

He opened his eyes. “I’m trying to irritate him, Ms. Ganapathy.”

She smiled. “You’re succeeding masterfully, Mr. Forsythe.”

He nodded in the direction of an arrangement of flowers on her desk. “From C?”

Her laugh was buoyant. “Not on Valentine’s Day. Ten to one he hasn’t remembered to buy Mrs. C anything either.”

She moved away, put a hand on the inner door and waited for him to stand. “In with you.”

“Thank you.” Nigel passed through into C’s office, contemplating the legalities of bear baiting.

C, broad-backed and grim, hacked away at a stack of papers with his pen. Nigel walked to the window and gave the Thames a once over. From the corner of his eye, he watched C’s big hand extend.

“Sit.”

“No, thank you.”

“It wasn’t a question.”

“I’d rather not.”

C dropped the Conway Stewart ballpoint and unmoored his chair from the desk. His eyes worked Nigel like rats sniffing mines. Back and forth, up and down, in and out. “You planning on playing nicely today?”

“Maybe.”

“You will or I’ll pull you off.”

Nigel turned. “You don’t want to do that. I’m the best you’ve got.”

“Then I’ll send in the second best. Better than having the thing implode because you’ve lost your touch.”

“You think I’ve lost it?”

“No.”

Nigel decided to sit. “What then?”

C pinched the bridge of his nose. Old habits died hard. He’d been doing it since Nigel first met him, over a decade ago.

“I met with Milton and Monroe yesterday – after you skipped your appointments and debriefing. There’s a general concern that you’re not taking care of yourself. Now, I don’t care whether you smoke Sobranies until you die of lung cancer or not, but I do care when you make yourself into a bull’s-eye.”

“That’s what Brad told you?” He forewent correcting C about the Sobranies. Why anyone would smoke Russian tobacco when better was available was beyond his skills of deduction.

“No.” C dropped his hand to the armrest and leaned forward. “He said it could’ve happened to anyone, that you were fine, not suffering from shades of Battle Fatigue or whatever else they’re calling it these days. But he doesn’t have the last say now, does he?”

“No, sir.”

“Do you want this op?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Are you fit? And I’m not asking whether your ribs or thigh are paining you. I want to know if you can do what needs to be done. We’re in up to the Queen’s knickers on three continents and I want something to come of it.”

Nigel appreciated C’s blunt approach. “Wouter surprised me, sir. I wrongly assumed he was ours through and through.”
And my guard was down because I never expected they’d target Irina
.

“And the fact you failed to treat either injury on site?”

“I knew there were landmines about; I had a rendezvous to make.” He shrugged. “I wasn’t actually aware I’d been hit across the chest. An old illusionist’s trick, keep the mind occupied with one spot, in this case my thigh, and a person doesn’t notice the other.”

“Why did you skip your appointments?”

“My sister, Kate, found out I was here. By the time I managed to extract myself from her exalted presence, I’d nearly signed my own death certificate.”

C sat in silence for some time. “What about the girl?”

“What girl?”

“I’m not in the mood for sport.”

“Nor am I?” Nigel kept himself still, though he was seething. Damned inconvenient to be unable to control his emotions of late.

“Bond. Samantha Bond.”

“Who?”

“Don’t play coy. You had dinner last night at her flat.”

So the bastard had had him followed. “She’s a friend of Brad’s.”

“What else do you know about her?” C’s brow was dark as rain clouds.

Nigel didn’t like the way the conversation was drifting. It made him think of vases and coincidence. “I know she owns an interior design firm which was employed by my sister to refurbish part of the family estate. I met her there yesterday. She was kind enough to drive me back to London. That’s all.”
Might as well lie to both of us.

“An unusual twist of fate.” The way C said it, Nigel was once again inclined to believe otherwise.

“Since you seem interested, what do you know that I don’t?”

“She’s got unusual ties.”

Nigel flexed his leg, remembering their brief foray into family history. “So her biological father was a Russian skeet-shooter. What of it?”

“She told you?” C’s surprise went some way toward soothing Nigel’s disheveled feathers. He ignored the question and C continued. “That’s true to an extent. He was also KGB – shooting was a forte in many areas of his life.”

Nigel’s blood thrummed too loud in the quiet room. “Does she know?”