"Who exactly confirmed Bernie Lutcher's death?" he asked, staring directly at one of the bloodshot-eyed assistants crowded around the table. This particular man, as a sad result of his previous time at a backwater desk in MI6, had the rare misfortune to be nearly fluent in Hungarian. That peculiar distinction earned him a turn on the hotseat, but he had worked himself into a lather and felt eager and ready for whatever Number Eight threw at him.
The young man straightened his tie, gathered his wits, and sat up. "The coroner of the Budapest police. The body was called in by airport security at one-fifteen, Budapest time. The police arrived a few minutes later. Bernie's corpse was transported to the city morgue, then placed in cold storage until six, when the night shift came on. The preliminary workup was done by a Dr. Laszlo"-he conferred with his notes-"Massouri."
Lord Pettlebone nodded, not at anything the man had said but a gesture to speed this up.
"We requested a full and immediate autopsy, of course. They begged off until tomorrow. That's our Hungarian friends for you. Even a ghastly murder in their capital airport doesn't put a hop in their step. But the preliminary cause of death," the man continued, browsing through his notes, "was a small knife puncture in the back."
He reached over and with a brash forefinger pointed like a dagger scraped an X slightly below the left shoulder blade of the man beside him. He plowed ahead. "A slight tearing around the incision suggests a twisting of the blade. The weapon was a stiletto, twelve or perhaps fifteen inches in length, only a few centimeters in width. Not a garden-variety weapon, I should say, more a specialist's tool, and it went directly for poor Bernie's heart." He waited a beat before he revealed this next revelation. "But his pupils were widely dilated, and his face also had a purplish discoloration, the visual by-products of oxygen deprivation. But no scarring or lesions from ligatures or bruises on his neck. As you know, this could be suggestive of poisoning."
"Assume both. He was poked with a coated blade," Pettlebone concluded swiftly, before the assistant could voice that rather evident opinion himself. "Let's further assume, hypothetically, the assassin was professional."
"Sorry, sir. Did I mention the dark bruise slightly below Bernie's breastbone?"
"Right you are. A pair of assassins." He examined the other faces. Knowing nods all around. "Witnesses?"
"Yes, and here's where it gets interesting," the man said with a relieved grin: this tidbit had fallen in his lap only ten minutes before. "The Budapest police were contacted about two hours ago by a Russian lady and man claiming to be her boyfriend. She swore she observed Konevitch stab his bodyguard in the back, then flee outside and jump into a cab."
"The client? The client stabbed his own security escort and fled?" Pettlebone sniffed and scowled. This firm did not hire out bodyguards, it provided security escorts.
"Quite right, sir. Alex Konevitch. Claimed she recognized him clear as a bell from the newsie magazines back in Russia. Seems he's quite the celebrity back home, being filthy rich and all."
Pettlebone removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. "But it took her ten hours to recall who he was?"
"So she says."
"I don't suppose the lady has a name?"
Back to the notes. A few pages were flipped. "Ah, here-according to her passport, Alisa Petrova. It might be a phony, though. I had a nice chat with the detective who received her statement. Not much of a lady, in his words. A rough piece of work."
"So she saw Konevitch stab our man. Did she also see who punched him in the gut?"
"She didn't mention it, no. Though it might be prudent to consider the possibility that her angle of observation precluded it."
"Is that your considered opinion?"
"Well, if her view was from the rear, Konevitch is quite tall, and Bernie very wide. Fat, actually."
"But is that your opinion?"
It was as close as he was going to come to one. The man clammed up and stopped talking. He suddenly found the blinking lights on the far wall endlessly fascinating.
Pettlebone looked up and down the table again. "Can anybody here recall an instance where one of our clients murdered one of our employees? Anyone?"
A retired partner leaning on the far wall, an old man, who missed the excitement with apparently little better to do than hang around the headquarters, took the challenge. "Aye. Back in '59, if I recall properly, Clyde Witherspoon got offed by his man. Seemed Clyde was shagging the client's old lady. Got caught in flagrante and the client blew his pecker off." The old man shook his head and whistled in wonder. "Ten meters away, too. Quite a shot, that. Allowed poor Clyde a distressing moment or so to ponder the damage, then finished him with a shot between the eyes."
Pettlebone adjusted his glasses. "Yes… Well, thank you, Bertie."
After a quick survey of the young pups around the table Bertie smiled and replied, "My pleasure."
"Now, can anyone tell me why our client had only one bodyguard?"
"At his own insistence, I'm afraid," the head of scheduling replied with a disapproving frown. "We recommended four escorts in the strongest possible terms. The client wouldn't hear of it. Said it would be poor for business." He arched his thick eyebrows and looked up. "A record of that conversation is on tape, if you're interested."
Malpractice suits were rare in the trade, since potential claimants were usually dead, one of the few upsides in a business loaded with downsides. But they happened. The firm had been dragged through a highly publicized courtroom brawl eighteen years before. That experience still smarted: business did not recover for five years. Pettlebone was satisfied that the firm's backside was covered, and moved on. "And does anybody have a clue where our client disappeared to? Anybody?"
Apparently not. The best and brightest shuffled papers, sipped tea, and adjusted their striped ties.
"Right you are," Pettlebone said, placing his hands on the table and leaning forward. "Then let me hazard a guess."
The best and brightest collectively thought: Have at it, old boy. You always like your own theories better than ours anyway.
He lifted three long, bony fingers. "He's either running away from murder, kidnapped, or dead." They stared at the fingers and said not a word.
The collective response: Oh, spare me; a brain-dead copper two days out of the academy could summarize the obvious.
"But the former looks a little shaky, I should think we all agree." One finger flopped down.
The collective wisdom: You're getting warmer, old boy. That possibility was discarded by the rest of us well over two hours ago while you and your pathetic old chums were chugging sherry in your snooty, prehistoric club.
Another finger folded. "And the latter we can do little about but send a bucket of roses after the dust settles."
The collective rejoinder: In which case you'll fall back on your standard response-dodge for cover, shove the blame downward, and send three or four of us packing. The first report of Bernie's death was called into your office six hours ago; you fled for sanctuary in your club so fast there are burn marks on your office carpet. And how very convenient of you to forget your pager and cell phone, which we found conveniently stuffed in the bottom drawer of your desk, you sly old bastard.
"So why haven't we heard from his kidnappers yet?"
The collective response: twenty sets of eyes suddenly shifted upward, in the general direction of the ceiling. Why not, indeed?
Statistically, they all knew, kidnappers nearly always make their demands a few short hours after the fact. Like card players holding a blackjack, why let the pot get cold?
More shuffling of papers, more sipped tea, more tightening of ties. A recorder in the attic was silently capturing every word. The lads around the table had sat through Pettlebone's inquisitions before and to a man weren't taken in by his Socratic bullshit. The first fool who guessed wrong, on the record and imprinted forever on the device in the attic, would end up first on the chopping block when this crisis ended, one way or the other, and they shifted into the usual blamestorm.