Severe Clear (Stone Barrington 24)

48

Holly and Felicity had nearly finished their cognac when Felicity’s phone rang. “Yes?” She listened intently. “You’ve checked every database? Thank you.” She hung up and turned to Holly. “We don’t know him.”

Holly sighed. “How has this person, who we know exists, eluded both our services’ attention until the past couple of weeks?”

“Holly, there are zillions of people on earth that we have no record of. Maybe in the next century or two we’ll know everything about everybody, but not yet.”

Holly’s phone rang. “Barker.”

“It’s Tom Riley. Scramble.” They both scrambled.

“Okay, shoot,” Holly said, putting her phone on speaker so Felicity could hear.

“A Bentley Mulsanne registered to Hamish McCallister is parked outside a house on the Chelsea Embankment, with a neighborhood parking permit stuck to the windshield, also registered to McCallister. A housemaid entered and a couple of tradespeople have been seen to come and go. We sent two operatives to the front door, posing as Mormon missionaries. The door was answered by a uniformed butler who said that Mr. McCallister was not at home, which in butlerese means he might be there but isn’t receiving callers. Our ‘missionaries’ tried to engage the butler further, but he closed the door in their faces.”

“So we don’t know who’s in the house, besides a butler and a housemaid?”

“We called the house, which has an unlisted number, posing as alumni relations from Christchurch College, Oxford, and asked for Hamish. The butler said he was not at home. That’s it. If we want to know, fast, who’s in the house, nothing short of phoning in a false fire alarm is available, and that might get more of Mr. McCallister’s attention than we want.”

“Anything on the presence of Mo on the Isle of Murk?”

“One of our people phoned the post office on the isle, posing as a Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs official, and inquired about mail deliveries to the house. The postmistress said that the post delivered had seemed routine for the past month, nothing addressed to a Shazaz. The most interesting delivery to the house was a package from Paxton & Whitfield, a well-known London cheese shop, marked ‘Perishables enclosed. Kindly deliver without delay.’ The evidence will probably have been consumed by now.”

“So we don’t know if Mo was there or if he wasn’t?”

“Correct.”

“Did you find out anything at all about the man?”

“A birth certificate, records of graduation from Eton and Oxford, a British driving license, no photograph. His address is the same as his brother’s, no employer stated on his tax returns, so he must have a private income. We haven’t been able to locate a photograph since he left Eton—none at Oxford—and he’s never made the papers or been arrested, except for two speeding tickets on the M4 motorway, four and seven years ago, both promptly paid. He’s a member of Annabel’s, Mark’s Club, Harry’s Bar, and George, all founded by Mark Burley, deceased, now owned by his heirs. He has charge accounts at Harrods, Fortnum & Mason, Kilgour, French & Stanbury tailors, Turnbull & Asser shirtmakers, and John Lobb bootmakers. Clean credit record. All this adds up to an overprivileged upper-class twit, except that his father was Syrian and his mother Egyptian, both deceased.”

“Good job, Tom, thank you. Please stay on locating Mo and call with any news.”

“Will do.” He hung up.

Holly pressed the end button. “I’m surprised your people didn’t have any of that,” she said to Felicity.

“You asked what we had, not what we could find out,” Felicity replied archly. “Still, your people did very well in the course of a single brandy.”

“They did, didn’t they? I’m pleased.”

“You should be—that would have taken my lot half a day.”

“Algernon,” Holly said.

“What?”

“The signer of the e-mails. He’s running Wynken, Blynken, and Nod, and he doesn’t care if we find them, as long as it takes our eye off the ball—off him, Algernon.”

“In that case, you’re unlikely to find the trio alive.”

“Are you thinking suicide bombs?”

Felicity shook her head. “The only suiciders al Qaeda has used in the States are the 9/11 hijackers. I think it’s more likely that Algernon will erase the three himself when he’s done with them. If caught, they might identify him.”

“It bothers me that we haven’t found out who brought in the bomb found in the wine storage room.”

“I expect the Secret Service are working that very hard. They’ll be interviewing the restaurant and kitchen staff.”