“Should we call for help?” she asked guardedly.
“No, no,” he insisted. “Just a knock.” He started to stand and Dhalal put a hand under his elbow to help.
“You really should not do that,” the merchant chided with a finger pointing upward. “Very dangerous.”
Elizabeth Merrill knew he’d fret over liability issues. Linstrom held up an arm, displaying a tear in the cuff of his jacket. To everyone’s relief, though, he seemed to recover quickly.
“I’m fine, really. No harm done. Let’s go look at those books, eh?”
The trio went downstairs, Dhalal keeping a close eye on his accident-prone suitor. Safely on the first floor, Dhalal brewed tea and the three spent nearly an hour going over the books. Linstrom asked questions that went straight to the bottom line, and while his comments were sometimes critical, all in all he seemed content with the numbers. He eventually made his pitch while Dhalal was assisting a customer.
“I’m going to have a word with my banker this evening,” he announced.
Elizabeth Merrill’s lack of reaction was well practiced.
“Today is Friday,” he continued. “I can probably have something for you on Monday. Can we meet … say around ten in the morning?”
“That would be fine. Where shall we meet?”
He paused. “We’d better make it here. Sometimes my banker has specific questions about a property, things he wants me to check on. Of course we’d be contracting for a proper inspection should we reach an agreement.”
“Of course,” she said. Then it dawned on her. “Monday. You know, things will be busy around here that morning. There’s going to be a big ceremony in the park.”
“Oh yes, all that commotion outside.”
“Huge crowds,” she said pointedly, suggesting heavy traffic for the shop. “You might come a bit early, but I don’t see why there should be any difficulty in our meeting here.”
“Good, because I’ve got a flight to Hamburg that afternoon. If we don’t meet Monday, it might get pushed back a couple of weeks, until I’m in town again.”
Elizabeth Merrill smiled. The two shook hands, exchanged best wishes for the weekend, and went their respective ways. Ecstatic that she might finally unload Dhalal’s stagnant listing, the property agent bustled off to her car.
The kidon took up a more casual pace.
He loitered briefly at a crosswalk, then a newsstand. He absorbed every detail while meandering back to Greenwich Station. There was still much to be done, but one thing was now certain. Barring sudden death or severe injury, he was absolutely convinced that Elizabeth Merrill would be in the shop come nine forty-five Monday morning.
Chapter Twenty-One
Slaton got back to his room at six-thirty that evening. The Forest Arms Hotel in Loughton had been a compromise. More respectable than the Benton Hill Inn, but not above taking cash up front for a short stay. The lies had come fluently. Having lost his wallet, the fastener salesman from Antwerp had been forwarded enough cash to get him through the weekend. A bored desk clerk had surrendered a room key with distinct lack of interest. Slaton had been alert, watching the young woman for any shred of doubt, any momentary glint of recognition which would tell him he’d been spotted. There was nothing.
He bolted the door and dropped his most recent acquisitions on the rectangular coffee table — a box containing a four-foot long window blind, a set of eight adjustable metal brackets with woodscrews, a small battery-operated screwdriver, a standard screwdriver, a pair of pliers, and a sturdy pocketknife. The ensemble of hardware coalesced nicely for a man who was going to install a window cover.
From the closet, he pulled out a half dozen small blocks of wood he’d scavenged earlier from a construction site, and then one of the weapons. The rifle’s steel barrel was cold, its solid weight familiar in Slaton’s hands. He set it down across the arms of a chair, taking care not to disturb the sight he had calibrated the day before. He took a wood block, actually a small section of four-by-four, and held it against the butt of the rifle, tracing an outline with a pencil. He then sat down with the pocketknife and began to carve. It was a laborious process, even though the wood was relatively soft. Power tools would have made the job much easier, but the noise would have been impossible to explain if any of his neighbors were to lodge a complaint. After twenty minutes he evaluated his progress. Deciding he’d gone too wide, he started over with a different piece of wood.
The first block took forty minutes to complete. The second was quicker, being a more simple design. Next he drilled guideholes, eight in each block of wood. The electric screwdriver was quiet enough that it wouldn’t be heard outside the room.
Slaton then went to the long box containing a retractable window blind. The box was held together with two plastic packing straps and a few staples on each end. He removed the staples one at a time with the screwdriver and pliers, inflicting minimal damage on the cardboard carton. He then carefully worked the plastic straps over the ends and opened the box. Taking out the wood blind, he set the cardboard container aside. The blind had a cord for actuating the contraption, and at the bottom was a small pulley designed to anchor the cord to the side of a window frame. He removed the pulley, then cut the cord into three segments, each roughly four feet in length. Having purchased an expensive brand, the cord was good quality.
He then gathered the bulk of the blind and the unused blocks of wood. These, he shoved to the back of the upper shelf in the closet. The shelf was probably seven feet up, and stepping back, he decided no maid less than six-foot-six could have any chance of spotting it. Even if it should be noticed, there was nothing particularly alarming involved.
He laid the box on the couch and began packing. The rifle went in first. He used the carved wood blocks, the bubble plastic that had come with the blind, and a few towels from the bathroom to cradle the weapon, again taking care not to disturb the sight. Then he fit the hardware and tools around the weapon and closed up the box, reworking the staples and plastic straps neatly back into place.
As a final touch, he slid the paper receipt underneath one of the straps, giving the complete impression of one freshly purchased window covering. The appearance was right, the weight was right. Slaton only hoped the more serious security precautions hadn’t yet begun. Sunday afternoon or Monday morning was out of the question. There would be overt and covert security at every turn, and he’d never get within a mile of the stage with a package like this. But tonight the watch would be thin, England’s security forces still scattered across the country hunting a nuclear terrorist. At least he hoped that was the case.
Shortly after nine o’clock that evening, Switchboard Two at Scotland Yard took a call from a man wishing to speak to someone in Nathan Chatham’s office. It was routed to an assistant, who was busy typing on her computer.
“You want to talk to who?” she asked.
“Christine Palmer,” the man repeated.
“Whoever she is, she doesn’t work in this section,” the operator said, clearly hoping that would be that.
“No, no. She doesn’t actually work there. Look, could you ask around darlin’?”
The assistant stopped typing and frowned. “Say,” she said over her shoulder, “has anyone heard of a Christine Palmer?”
Most of the room shot her a blank look, but there was one reply. “Who wants to know?”
The woman recognized the voice of the boss’s right-hand man and her attention ratcheted up a few notches. “Some doctor from the States.”
Ian Dark took the handset.
“Hello. To whom am I speaking?”