“I know. He’s paranoid as hell. Always has been. He dealt with me only after he confirmed that I worked with the Secret Service. Always with a password, though, which changed all the time.”
Malone was seriously wondering if this was worth the trouble. But he wanted to confirm a hunch, so he stepped across the upper floor, ducked through a low doorway that bore the curious admonition BE NOT INHOSPITABLE TO STRANGERS LEST THEY BE ANGELS IN DISGUISE, to a casement window.
When they’d left the churchyard and strolled toward the shop, he’d first noticed the man. Tall, rail-thin, dressed in baggy khaki pants, a waist-length navy coat, and black shoes. He’d stayed a hundred feet behind them and, as they’d loitered out front, their tail had stopped, too, near one of the cafés.
Now Skinny was entering the shop below.
Malone needed to be sure, so he turned from the window and asked, “Does Foddrell know what you look like?”
Sam nodded. “I sent him a picture.”
“I assume he did not reciprocate?”
“I never asked.”
He thought again of the mirror of love. “So tell me, who is it Foddrell said was right?”
Malone 5 - The Paris Vendetta
NINETEEN
LONDON
1:25 PM
ASHBY STROLLED INTO WESTMINSTER ABBEY AMID A CROWD that had just emerged from several tour buses.
His spine always tingled when he entered this shrine.
Here was a place that could recount English history back more than a millennium. A former Benedictine monastery, now the seat of government and heart of the Anglican Church. Every English monarch, save two, since the time of William the Conqueror had been crowned here. Only its French influences bothered him, though understandable given that the design had been inspired by the great French cathedrals at Reims, Amiens, and Sainte-Chapelle. But he’d always agreed with how one British observer described Westminister.
A great French thought expressed in excellent English.
He stopped at the gate and paid his admission, then followed a throng into Poets’ Corner, where visitors congregated near wall monuments and statuary depicting images of Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Milton, and Longfellow. Many more of the greats lay around him, among them Tennyson, Dickens, Kipling, Hardy, Browning. His gaze surveyed the chaotic scene and finally settled on a man standing before Chaucer’s tomb, sporting a glen-plaid suit with a cashmere tie. A pair of caramel-colored gloves sheathed empty hands and a handsome style of Gucci loafers protected his broad feet.
Ashby approached and, as he admired the tomb’s five-hundred-year-old stonework, asked, “Do you know the painter Godfrey Kneller?”
The man scrutinized him with a pair of rheumy eyes whose amber color was both distinctive and disturbing. “I believe I do. A great court artist of the 18th century. He’s buried at Twickenham, I believe.”
The reference to Twickenham signaled the correct response, the strained Irish accent an interesting touch. So he said, “I’m told Kneller harbored a great aversion toward this place, though there is a memorial dedicated to him near the east cloister door.”
The man nodded. “His exact words, I believe, were, By God I will not be buried in Westminster. They do bury fools there.”
The quotation confirmed that this was the man he’d talked with on the telephone. The voice then was different, more throaty, less nasal, no accent.
“Top of the morning to you, Lord Ashby,” the man said, adding a smile.
“And what should I call you?”
“How about Godfrey? In honor of the great painter. He was quite correct in his assessment of the souls laid to rest within these walls. There are a great many fools buried here.”
He took in the man’s coarse features, scrutinizing a cob nose, satchel mouth, and scrubby salt-and-pepper beard. But it was the reptilian amber eyes, framed by bushy eyebrows, that arrested his attention.
“I assure you, Lord Ashby, this is not my real appearance. So don’t waste your time memorizing it.”
He wondered why someone who went to so much trouble to be in disguise allowed his most noticeable feature—the eyes—to remain so startling. But all he said was, “I like to know about the men I do business with.”
“And I prefer to know nothing as to my clients. But you, Lord Ashby, are an exception. You, I have learned a great deal about.”
He wasn’t particularly interested in this demon’s mind games.
“You’re the sole shareholder of a great British banking institution, a wealthy man who enjoys life. Even the queen herself counts you as an adviser.”
“And surely, you possess an equally exciting existence.”
The man smiled, revealing a gap between his front teeth. “I have no interests, other than pleasing you, my lord.”
He did not appreciate the sarcasm, but let it pass. “Are you prepared to carry through on what we discussed?”
The man ambled toward a row of monuments, gazing at the memorials like the other visitors surrounding them. “That depends if you’re prepared to deliver, as I requested.”
He reached into his pocket and removed a set of keys. “These open the hangar. The plane is there, waiting with a full tank of petrol. Its registration is Belgian, its owner fictitious.”
Godfrey accepted the keys. “And?”
The gaze from the amber eyes brought a new wave of uncomfortableness. He handed over a slip of paper. “The number and pass code for the Swiss account, as you requested. Half payment is there. The other half will come after.”
“The timetable you wanted is two days from now. Christmas Day. Is that still correct?”
Ashby nodded.
Godfrey pocketed the keys and the paper. “Things certainly will change then.”
“That’s the whole idea.”
The man gave a slight chuckle and they strolled farther into the cathedral, stopping before a plaque that indicated a date of death in 1669. Godfrey motioned to the wall and said, “Sir Robert Stapylton. Do you know him?”
He nodded. “A dramatic poet, knighted by Charles II.”