The Matarese Countdown (Matarese Dynasty 1)

"Any moment .. . any hour now," replied Leslie, her eyes briefly distant, inward.

"Somewhere soon a message will arrive-a telephone number to be dialed from a public phone-where and when to call, and a recorded voice giving me my orders. There was no way they could reach me during the past five days. Our entire security was altered, mole proof we believe, but this morning we let the word out at Langley. They now know I'm in London."

"Doesn't that frighten you?" exclaimed Angela Brewster.

"It would frighten me far, far more if they didn't contact me."

"What can we do?" asked the Brewster son.

"Tell us everything you know about Gerald Henshaw," replied Pryce.

"And answer the questions we ask you."

"We've told what we both know to the police and Mi-Fiveeverything."

"Tell us, Angela dear," said Montrose.

"Do so, my child," added Waters.

"We're all human, therefore imperfect. Perhaps our new friends might pick up on something we've missed."

The litany began with Henshaw's weaknesses: his frequent drunkenness, the womanizing, his flagrant abuse of the money he was both given and stole, his arrogance toward servants when Lady Alicia was out of earshot, the constant lies as to his whereabouts on the occasions when he could not be found-the list was seemingly endless.

"I'm surprised your mother put up with him," said Cameron.

"You'd have to know Gerald Henshaw to understand," answered Angela, her voice soft, as if searching for words.

"Mother wasn't stupid, she just didn't see the things other people saw. He hid that side of himself from her."

"He was a bloody genius at it," Roger broke in.

"Around her he was all lovable charm. For a few years I actually liked the bastard.

Angela didn't but I did."

"We women are brighter in that area, don't you think?"

"That's a myth, little sister, and in the early days he was good for her."

"He distracted her, that's all."

"But weren't you two away at school most of the time?" asked Pryce.

"Yes," replied the brother, "for the past six years anyway, but we were home during the summers and the holidays and occasional weekends. Not necessarily together, but we were here enough to see what was happening."

"Enough to change your mind, Roger?" pressed Cameron.

"Definitely, sir."

"What started your conversion?" asked Leslie.

"To your sister's way of thinking."

"All the things we've told you."

"Things you learned gradually, I assume. I mean, they weren't all suddenly apparent to you, were they? Something had to start you thinking."

Brother and sister looked at each other. Angela spoke.

"It was the automobile-repair shop in St. Albans, wasn't it, Rog? They called to say the Jag was fixed, remember?"

"That's right," agreed the brother.

"The owner thought he was speaking to Gerry. He said he wouldn't release the car except for hard cash-no checks, no bills to accountants, just plain money."

"Why was that?" Pryce looked at Geoffrey Waters, who shook his head, signifying bewilderment.

"As I later learned, it was the eleventh time in a year and a half that Gerry took the Jaguar in for repairs. He and Mum were in Brussels for a Wildlife gig, so I drove her Bentley up to St. Albans and talked to the fellow. He told me that Henshaw had him send the first few bills to Mother's accountants, who aren't famous for paying immediately. Also, they apparently haggle a bit."

"That's hardly a reason to demand cash," said Montrose.

"Insurance companies commonly question automobile repairs."

"Well, that's just it. Gerry never used our insurance, he didn't report the accidents."

"Some people don't," explained Cameron, "because their premiums go up."

"I've heard that, sir, but there was something else. Why did he have the shop in St. Albans do the repairs in the first place? Why not the Jaguar Motors right here in London? We've been dealing with them for years."

"Probably to keep your mother from learning about the accidents."

"That's what I figured, Mr. Pryce, but Mum wasn't blind, and a missing car is pretty obvious. Especially a bright red Jag that's usually parked out front-Gerald couldn't be bothered to put it in the garage."

"I see what you mean. Then this 'something else," did you find it?"

"I may have, sir. The bill for the repairs that day was twenty-six hundred and seventy pounds-" "Twenty-six hundred .. . nearly three thousand pounds?" exploded Waters of MI-5. "He must have practically totaled the damn car!"

"I'm afraid he didn't, at least nothing on the bill indicated it. There were charges for a fender pounded out and repainted, also a 'detailing," which is merely a thorough washing and vacuuming."

"What else?" demanded the MI-5 chief.

"How did the bugger come up with over twenty-six hundred pounds?"

"The remainder was listed under 'miscellaneous'-" "What?" said an astonished Pryce.

"Did he think he could get away with that?"

"I don't believe he thought about it," replied Roger Brewster.

"I

should explain that when I arrived, he was startled that I wasn't Gerry. I don't think he would have told me the amount over the phone if he knew it was me."

"Did he justify the 'miscellaneous'?" pressed Cameron.

"He said to ask my 'old man."

" "Did you bring the money, the cash?" Leslie inquired.

"Yes, I wanted to get the car back. Since Mother traveled all over the place for Wildlife, she set up emergency accounts for Angela and me. I stopped off at the bank, made a withdrawal, and drove to St. Albans, expecting to hire someone to drive the Bentley back here."

"Were you going to tell your mother?" continued Montrose.

"Well, I figured I'd confront Gerry first, see if he had any kind of reasonable explanation."

"Did you?" asked Pryce.

"Of course, and he really blew me away. To begin with, he peeled off three thousand pounds-and he never had that kind of money- saying that the extra was for the trouble I went to. Then he told me not to say anything to Mum because she was responsible for the Jag's repairs and he didn't want her upset."

"How was she supposedly responsible?" asked Geoffrey Waters.

&nbs

p; "He claimed Mother drove it to our country house without oil in the crankcase and with the wrong petrol. That he had to have the whole engine overhauled."

"You accepted that?"

"Hell, no! Mother hated that car; it was a present to Gerry, who loved it. It wasn't the fact that it was a Jaguar, it was the color. She said it was ostentatious, stood out like a bleeding thumb. That wasn't her way."

"Why didn't you ever mention this during our interrogations?"

"It never came up, Geoffrey. Nobody asked how we learned about the real Gerald Henshaw."

"How did you?" asked Cameron.

"An automobile-repair bill, no matter how out of whack, couldn't tell you that much, could it?"

"Rog was angry," answered Angela, interrupting.

"He talked to me, which he doesn't always do, and he said something was wrong, really wrong. I said of course it was, I always knew it! Then we both remembered, we had a cousin, a barrister in Regent Street. We went to see him and asked him to look into Gerry, find out everything he could."

"That's when the whole ghastly story came to light," added the brother.

"The girlfriends, names and addresses included, the drinking, the paid-off accidents, the banishments from restaurants and private clubs the entire bloody mess, all confirmed."

"Did you go to your mother and tell her?" Pryce glanced back and forth between the two children.

"Not at first," replied Roger, "but try to understand why. Gerry was a rogue, a charlatan, but he did make our mother happy. When our father died, she was a basket case-for a while Angela and I actually feared she might take her own life."

"And then this marvelous actor appeared," said Angela.

"Tall, polished, with extraordinary credentials-none of which proved accurate-but he was there for her. How could we destroy that?"

"If I may, chaps?" asked Sir Geoffrey Waters, not answering the question.

"We've covered most of this. Where are we heading?"

"It's that 'miscellaneous,"

" answered Cameron.

"Twenty-six hundred pounds for a fender bender? I think we should drive to St.

Albans."

"Two points for the colonials," said the man from MI-5.

The St. Albans Motor Works was a small shop in the industrial part of the city. The hammering and the shrill sounds of multiple drills along with the incessant, wheezing bursts of air from the two-pronged lifts announced its occupational activity. The owner was a portly fellow in grease-laden coveralls, his face that of a man who worked physically hard for a living, the lines around his eyes and creasing his forehead premature, the result of his labors, not from indulgence. He was in his forties and his name was properly Alfred-Alfie Noyes.