“The ooties?”
“Outies, in our language. Outsiders. Worse: Londoners! The locals are still getting used to the recent influx of tourism and all the new bed-and-breakfast hotels in the area, but actual city dwellers moving here to live has caused no end of a scandal. He knew the previous owner of Laurels, and he met Mr. Howard once, in the pub, with-with Solange. But he hasn’t seen them in a while, and now, in the last few days, there are some real ooties about the place. Blackies, to use his word. Foreign nationals, I should think.”
Nora thought about this. Nassim Gamal and the man and woman from Libya. And others, perhaps, British citizens from that part of the world, converging at Laurels for the exchange or the sale or whatever it was. And in the middle of all this activity, her husband. She shut her eyes, willing herself to remain calm, reminding herself that the cavalry-the local police and MI5-were on the way.
The pretty stone Magazine Cottage came and went, then more fields, and finally the trees. Craig slowed the car and turned left, driving along a bumpy lane beside the outer edge of what appeared to be a substantial forest. It was then, gazing out at the trees, that Nora remembered her remarkably similar journey three days before, in France. Pinède had been high in the mountains, and Sedgeford was on level ground, but her paths to them had been the same. Both times, she’d left the capital city and traveled to the easternmost boundary of the country, to a tiny forest village. Remembering what had happened to her in the first one, she glanced over her shoulder at her bag on the backseat, grateful for the little revolver wrapped in her shawl at the bottom of it.
She wondered if she’d need it.
They passed a big stone house set well back from the road, with iron gates blocking the entrance to a long driveway, and Craig slowed the car again, studying the view ahead of them. A few more yards, and he suddenly turned right, into the trees. Nora stared as two huge evergreens appeared before them, then relaxed when she saw that they were actually driving on an unpaved track between the trunks, heading directly into the dark woods. She glanced over at Craig, deciding not to question him as he navigated the car along the incredibly narrow path.
The scents of pine and green grass drifted through her window, and she breathed deeply. She assumed this was the way to Laurels and at any moment they would emerge from the trees to find a farmhouse and stables surrounded by fields like the ones they’d been passing all morning. She was bracing herself for her first sight of her husband’s prison when Craig suddenly stopped the car and cut the engine.
“Okay,” he said before she could speak. “The rest of the way is on foot.”
“Where are we?” she asked.
“Well, if I caught everything Mr. Wycliff was saying a mile a minute, Laurels is the next farm that way.” He waved an arm to his left. “But we can’t just roll right in and say howdy. We don’t know what we’re facing, but we will before we do anything. Let’s spy on them for a while, see what we can see, then I can call my friends. I think we’ll need them.”
Nora nodded, remembering Leicester Square yesterday afternoon. “Yes, Andy Gilbert and Yussuf were planning to arrive at noon. I guess Andy won’t be showing up after all, but the other one might. That’s one more for their side.” She checked her watch again: 11:42.
Craig grunted, frowning. “Yes, it is.” Nora got her bag from the backseat, and Craig reached into the glove compartment in front of her and took out a pair of field glasses. “Okay, come on.”
They got out of the car, and Craig locked it and dropped the keys into the pocket of his jacket before marching off through the trees to their left. Nora followed, instantly regretting that she’d left the cheap gray coat in the car. It was chilly in this thick forest, even with the late-morning sunlight bearing down through the leaves above them. They crunched their way through dried leaves, moving at an uphill slant. Nora glanced around, wondering what animals lived here. If there were any, they weren’t making any noise; even the birds were silent. Aside from the crackling of the leaves, there wasn’t a sound in the world.
The sunlight through the branches brightened, and they emerged from the forest into open space. A split-rail fence was here, and Craig immediately dropped to one knee, pulling Nora down beside him. They knelt behind the fence, looking out at the wide vista before them.
There it was: Laurels. It was slightly below them; the forest was apparently on a hill of some height, rare for this region of fens and fields. The main house was an impressive, long, two-story manse of white brick and stone, with a sloping slate roof and a porch at the entrance. The drive leading to it curved into a circle in front of it, and there were other buildings beyond it, a big barn and attached stables. The fields she’d been expecting were modest, perhaps fifty yards of grass at the back and on this side, closest to where they crouched. The far buildings, the barn and stables, were at the edge of the woods, with trees around and behind them. There was a big circular area in the nearer field beside the house, enclosed by split-rail fencing, and Nora realized that it was a disused corral.
Craig raised the field glasses to his face, and Nora tried to see where he was looking. A low-slung, jazzy-looking gold sports car was parked between two laurel trees near the barn.
“Mr. Howard’s pride and joy,” Craig said. “That’s an Aston Martin from the sixties, exactly like the one in the James Bond movies. He bought it after-um-after he separated from Mrs. Howard. It’s the car your husband drove to King’s Lynn. Now it’s back here. I think that tells us something.”
Nora leaned forward to peer at the rows of windows on the big house below them. She wondered which window was the room where Jeff was being held. She was lowering her hand into her shoulder bag, feeling for the shawl that was wrapped around the revolver, when Craig pointed down the front drive in the direction of the main road.
“Look,” he whispered.
Nora looked. As they watched from their hiding place, a big canvas-covered military-style truck turned in at the gates and rumbled slowly up the drive toward the house. It came around the curve and stopped at the porch steps. Two men got out of the cab, and the canvas at the back suddenly lifted. Two other men jumped down from the tailgate and joined them. All four men were wearing dark jackets and jeans and work boots, and all four had brown skin and black hair. South Asian, Nora thought, or Middle Eastern.
The front door of the house opened, and two men came out to join the four in the driveway. The first man was big and as dark as the others, and Nora didn’t recognize him. But she immediately recognized the man who stood behind him in the doorway.
When she saw his face, she froze, clutching the fence rail in front of her. She blinked and looked again, peering more closely at the figure on the porch down the hill. No, she hadn’t been mistaken. Everything inside her went numb.
In that moment, kneeling at the fence above the distant house, Nora Baron realized that she’d been conned. From her arrival in England four days ago-no, before that. From the phone call at her home, when she’d been standing on the widow’s walk. That’s when it had begun, and now the game was complete. The dizzying, wrenching shock overwhelmed her, blurring the scene before her eyes.
The man who now stood in the doorway of Laurels was its owner, Bill Howard. He wasn’t dead; he was far from dead. He was smiling as he greeted the other men. It couldn’t possibly be happening, and yet it was. Then, of course, the second, even bigger shock arrived, as inevitable as it was unexpected. Beside her, Craig Elder the younger turned his head to face her, and he began to laugh softly in her ear.