“Yes, sir, and thank you.”
Stone hung up the phone, baffled more than before.
21
THE FUNERAL SERVICE FOR JAMES CUTLER took place at the Catholic church in Farm Street, which Stone remembered being mentioned in the novels of Evelyn Waugh. All the people present at the house party the weekend before attended, plus a great many others, many of whom Stone surmised were business acquaintances of the deceased. Julian Wainwright was prominent among them, looking suitably sorrowful. When the service was over, many of those present adjourned to the house occupied by Lance Cabot and Erica Burroughs, which was conveniently nearby.
A light lunch was served, and Stone had a glass of wine. He wandered idly through the house looking at pictures and taking in the place. It was handsomely decorated, and Stone wondered if Lance had had it done or if the house came that way when it was rented. As he strolled down a hallway, he heard Lance’s voice through an ajar door, apparently to the study.
“Let me make this as clear for you as I possibly can,” Lance was saying, “if you persist in this, if you send anyone else for me, I’ll kill them, then I’ll find you and I’ll kill you. That is a solemn promise.” Then he slammed the handset down onto the receiver.
Stone ducked into a powder room and closed the door. He wanted to hear all of that conversation, and fortunately, he had the means to do so quite nearby. He ducked out of the house and found Bobby Jones down the street.
“Good day,” Jones said.
“I want to hear what’s on the recorder,” Stone said.
“Of course; I’ll take you there.”
Stone followed the little man to a garage nearby. Jones unlocked a small door in the larger one and closed it behind them. He went to a cupboard at the rear of the garage, unlocked a padlock, and opened the door to reveal a small tape machine. “How far back today do you want me to go?”
“The last conversation,” Stone replied.
Jones rewound the tape, and the sound of voices backward and at speed could be heard, then stopped. He punched a button and the recorder began to play.
“Hello?” Lance’s voice.
“I want it,” another male voice said. “You’re all out of time.” The quality of the connection was poor, as if the call were coming from some Third World country.
“Let me make this as clear for you as I possibly can,” Lance said, and the rest was as Stone had heard a moment before.
“Let me hear it again,” Stone said.
Jones rewound the machine, and Stone listened carefully. The voice was American, he thought, but he could not be sure, and it didn’t sound like Bartholomew. “Once more,” Stone said, and listened.
“Sounds like he’s got somebody on his back,” Jones said, resetting the machine.
“Yes, it does.”
“Sounds like money to me.”
“Could be. Could be almost anything of value—even information.”
“I suppose so, but I’m a copper right to the bone, and I tend to think in the simplest terms, especially where a threat to kill is involved.”
“You could be right,” Stone admitted. “By the way, I checked with a knowledgeable friend in New York, and Stanford Hedger has been dead for two years.”
“You could have fooled me,” Jones said, letting them out of the garage and locking the door behind him. “What do you make of that?”
“Well, one of two things, I guess: either Hedger isn’t dead, or he’s dead and Bartholomew is using his identity for some purpose.”
&nb
sp; “This is far too thick for me,” Jones said. “Give me a nice homicide any day; I never know what to make of these spooks.”
“You’ve had experience with them before?”
“Yes, but only with the blokes on our side—MI6. The trouble with trying to figure them out is you never know what they want, and if they explained it to you, you probably wouldn’t understand it.”