“It’s a diplomatic plate,” Chatham said with certainty, “and I’d wager that if it’s not the same car, it’s at least drawn from the same motor pool.”
Dark strained to make sense of it, “You think the Israelis killed this Meier chap? Maybe the car was from another embassy. The Syrians, or someone like that.”
“Hmm,” Chatham murmured, lost in a multitude of his own thoughts. “What we have to do is send this down to our technical people. Perhaps they can make something out of that license plate. In any event, I’m more inclined to believe that Yosef Meier’s death was nothing near an accident.”
“I suspect you’re right,” Dark agreed. “There’s a lot of killing going on here, and possibly more to come. It’s frustrating that the Israelis must know something about it, but aren’t letting on.”
“Something?” He crossed to the window and stood with his hands on his hips. “They know all of it!” he growled. Chatham strode to the door and yanked his coat off the rack. “I’m going to have a word with Shearer.”
They arrived in the late afternoon. As a seasonal matter, the beach access road had been blocked off. Slaton got out and dragged a wooden barricade far enough aside for Christine to maneuver their ragged little car through the gap, then shoved it back into place. He didn’t bother to smooth over the tire ruts in the muddy gravel — there were already others, so they were clearly not the first to circumvent the barrier. But on this day, with a chilly breeze and low, heavy clouds that seemed to promise rain, they would likely be alone. A small car park just inside the entrance lay vacant, and likely had been for days. Even during peak season, the beaches along this stretch of the Devon coast were not among the most popular. They were remote, rocky, and the water was nearly a mile from parking at its closest point.
They drove slowly on a road that seemed to have no end, meandering deeper and deeper into a maze of sandy hills that were covered with outcroppings of coarse, tough vegetation. After ten minutes, Slaton announced his intention to find a place to park that would conceal the small car. There were plenty of hiding spots. Unfortunately, the same loose sand that created a warren of twenty-foot dunes also served to make the valleys impassable to lightweight, two-wheel-drive sedans.
It took twenty more minutes of weaving before Slaton found a spot he deemed useful. A turnabout was situated between two dunes, and farther back a thick, straw-like stand of grass gave some firmness to the ground. Slaton got out and studied the area. Content, he guided Christine to pull the Ford back behind a large hill and into a stretch of brambles. This time Slaton yanked off a few long strands of grass and used them to sweep clear the car’s tracks. He went back to the main road and stood with his arms crossed, evaluating how well they were concealed.
“That should work,” he decided. “We’ll sleep in the car tonight. By morning, I’ll have the next steps worked out.”
Christine looked at the surrounding dunes. They seemed desolate and barren, yet comforting. No people or cars to watch and worry about. Only sand, thicket, wind, and wide-open space. It was the safest she’d felt for a long time.
“Have you been here before?” she asked.
“Once or twice. During the summer it’s busy. But this time of year it might be a week before anyone wanders by.”
A gust of wind swept in and Christine felt a chill. She reached into the car, fished out a cable-knit sweater and put it on. Slaton began rummaging through two bags of provisions Christine had purchased earlier at a small village grocery.
“Hungry?” he asked.
“I suppose. How far away is the ocean?”
Slaton’s head was still buried in the back of the car. “Oh, maybe a mile.”
“Why don’t we take our dinner there. A walk would feel good after sitting for so long.”
Slaton lifted his head out of the car and looked at her, then shifted his gaze up to the solid gray sky that hovered threateningly overhead. He shrugged. “Okay. If you want.” He took a bag of groceries, then went to the driver’s seat and grabbed his jacket and the Beretta.
Christine tensed at the sight of the weapon. She watched as he started to wrap his jacket around the gun, no doubt to keep out any rain or sand. She remembered the first time she’d seen it — pointed at her in a Penzance hotel room, by a man who was now dead.
Though David didn’t seem to be watching her, he suddenly stopped what he was doing. He studied the gun obviously for a moment, then said, “Ach, no need to lug this thing along.” He put it back under the driver’s seat and locked the door, then opened the trunk and pulled out a stack of three heavy blankets, requisitioned from Humphrey Hall. “But we might need these.” Slaton closed the trunk and set off for the shoreline at a casual pace. When she didn’t fall in right behind, he turned.
She stood staring at him, an inescapably warm smile on her face.
“What?”
“Nothing,” she said, the smile still etched in place.
They followed a winding path between the dunes. The soft sand made progress slow, but neither was in a hurry.
“So what are your plans after you finish your residency?”
The question caught her by surprise. It was the kind of thing she used to give a lot of thought to. “I’d like to be a family practitioner, probably in a small town. A lot of my classmates are set on specializing — surgery, radiology, anesthesiology. They’ll say the pay is better or the hours more reasonable. When they finish school they’ll go to work in some big hospital, an assembly-line operation where they never even get to know their patients. That’s not being a doctor. Not in my book. And not in Upper’s.”
“Who?”
Christine laughed, “Dr. Upton N. Downey, my resident adviser and hero. He’s a Texas Type A. Constant slow motion. He’ll lope through the halls in his Tony Lama snakeskins and drawl non-stop to a half dozen fledgling residents. Winks at the kids, winks at the nurses, never misses a thought. Upper is a really smart man who’s proved to me that good medicine is part science, part art. The science for a good FP is knowing a little about all the specialties. And the art is in getting to know your patients and their families, getting them to trust you.”
“You’d be good at that. The trusting part.”
Christine smiled.
“So what was your favorite rotation? Isn’t that what they call them?”
“Yes. OB-GYN. I delivered a baby a few months ago. It was the most incredible thing I’ve ever done. Have you ever seen a child born?”
He hesitated on the question, one that should have required no thought. “Once,” he said.
For the thousandth time Christine wondered what was going on in his head. They shuffled ahead silently and she hoped he would explain, that he’d lift the veil for once and show a part of himself. When nothing came, she decided not to push.
“This reminds me of a beach back home,” she said. “I used to go there when I was a girl. The dunes seem endless. Then, just when you think you’ll never reach the water, it appears out of nowhere.”
“Was this in Florida?”
“Yeah. Where I grew up.”
He nodded, “It’s good to have a place you can call home. Someday you’ll probably be taking your daughter to that same beach.”
She laughed, “I never thought about it, but I suppose you’re right. As long as someone doesn’t stack it with condominiums first.”
They crested a rise and suddenly the Atlantic was before them. The waters were dark, almost black in color, punctuated by white streaks of foam. Waves broke up and down the beach, producing a never-ending series of hollow thuds, weary travelers slamming down to announce their arrival, then churning and clawing the last few feet up to shore. They stood in silence, mesmerized by nature’s perpetual show.