“It never hurts, if a lawyer can avoid being seen to be clever.”
They drove in silence for half an hour. Finally, Monica spoke again. “Lance seems to think that Sarah did it deliberately.”
“None of the evidence I’m aware of supports that view.”
“So you think it was an accident?”
“Yes.” And he would continue to prefer to think that. Then he thought about Sarah’s late-night visit to him two nights before. A fling on her part, nothing more, he told himself.
She dropped him at the Connaught. “Dinner this week sometime?”
“Let me call you; I don’t know yet how long I’ll be here.”
She handed him a card. “Home, gallery, and cellphone.”
He thanked her and followed the porter into the hotel.
“You have a number of messages, Mr. Barrington,” the concierge said, handing him some small envelopes.
Stone waited until he was back in his suite to open them. Two were from John Bartholomew, or whoever he was, one was from Dino, and one was from Bill Eggers at Woodman & Weld. Stone dialed the New York number for Bartholomew. The number rang, then was interrupted, then
rang again.
“Yes?”
“It’s Stone Barrington.”
“I’ve been trying to reach you, but the phone I gave you wasn’t working.”
Stone looked over and saw the phone resting on its charger. “I’m sorry; I forgot to take the phone with me when I went away for the weekend.”
“I read about your weekend in the morning papers,” Bartholomew said.
Not the New York papers, Stone thought. Bartholomew was still in London.
“Hello?”
“I’m still here.”
“What have you learned?”
“That Cabot calls himself an independent business consultant.”
Bartholomew made a snorting sound. “Of course.”
“And that Erica Burroughs is not your niece.”
Now it was Bartholomew who was silent.
“And her mother is not dead, though her father is.”
“It’s not necessary for you to know everything,” Bartholomew said.
“Perhaps not, but it’s necessary, if we’re to continue this relationship, that what I do know is true and not a lie.”
“My apologies,” Bartholomew said stiffly. “What do you want to know?”
“Why do you want Lance Cabot in an English jail?”