The Short Forever(81)

“There are taxis everywhere.”

“Right. You got any English money? I didn’t have time before I left New York.”

Stone gave him a wad of notes. “Spend it in good health; it’s Hedger’s.”

“That’ll make it more fun,” Dino said.



At eleven-thirty sharp, the doorbell rang, and Stone opened the door to find Carpenter standing there, holding a briefcase. “Come in,” he said.

She smiled, the first time she had exhibited teeth, and they were very nice teeth, indeed. “Thank you.” She stepped in and took a seat in the drawing room. “Horrible decor,” she said, looking around.

“A dead man did it.”

“I’m not surprised. Please bring me the jacket you’re wearing to lunch.”

Stone went away and came back with a blue blazer.

“Nothing with brass buttons,” she said. “You should wear a suit, anyway; the Waterside Inn is quite elegant.”

Stone went away and came back with a suit jacket. She examined the buttons and nodded, then opened her briefcase. She removed a small leather case, which held a selection of buttons. “Oh, good,” she said; “an excellent match.” She took some scissors and snipped off one of the four small buttons on Stone’s left sleeve, then deftly sewed on one of her buttons. “There,” she said. “Good match?”

“Excellent. Do you mean that tiny button is a bug?”

“In conjunction with this,” she said, holding up a fat Mont Blanc pen, made of sterling silver. She clipped it into Stone’s inside left-hand pocket. “The button transmits to the pen, and the pen transmits up to three miles, but we’ll keep the van within two, just to be sure. They pick up the transmission and record it.” She took out the pen and unscrewed the cap. “It’s a working pen, too.”

Stone examined the pen and tried to unscrew the other end.

“You can’t do that without a special tool; don’t worry, it has a fresh rollerball refill inside; you won’t run out of ink.”

“Good,” Stone said, replacing the pen in the jacket pocket.

“The only limitation is that the button has to be within six feet of whoever you’re talking to. I used a sleeve button because you can put your hands on the table and get it closer to Cabot. Don’t have any conversations with him from across the room.”

“I’ll remember that,” he said. “Tell me, how did a nice girl like you get into this business?”

“Isn’t that what you’re supposed to ask a whore?” she asked wryly.

“Spies, too.”

“I’m not a spy; I catch spies.”

“Come on, how?”

“I was recruited my last year at Oxford; my father had worked for the same firm, but he was killed in the line of duty when I was sixteen. I suppose I wanted to finish his job. How did you get from being a cop to being a lawyer?”

“I was recruited for the police department my last year in law school,” Stone said. “Fourteen years later, I was retired for medical reasons. I took the bar exam, and a friend found a place for me with his law firm.”

“You look pretty healthy to me,” she said, looking him up and down.

“It was a bullet in the knee. I got over it, except in cold weather.”

“Oh,” she said, retrieving a map from her briefcase. “Sit down, and I’ll show you how to get to the Waterside Inn.”

Stone sat on the arm of her chair and caught a faint whiff of perfume. He wondered if intelligence agents often wore perfume to work.

“Here we are, in Chester Street; you go down to the corner, turn left at Hyde Park Corner, that’s the big roundabout, here, and go straight out Knightsbridge, past Harrod’s, straight on out, as if you were going to Heathrow. You’ll end up on the M4 motorway; get off at the Bray exit and follow the signs to the village. You’ll see signs for the inn once you’re in the village. It’s at the end of a street that runs dead into the river, on your left.”

“What river?”

“The Thames; it’s pretty much the river around here. Have you driven on the right side before?”

“No, but it doesn’t look too hard.”

“It isn’t, but watch out for the first right-hand turn you make. Americans invariably turn into the right lane, instead of the left. The streets are littered with smashed rental cars.” She stood up. “Well, I have to go. Your car should be here shortly; I’d allow three-quarters of an hour for the drive; it could take an hour if traffic is bad.”

He walked her to the door, and with a final, fleeting glance at him and a little smile, she left. He wished he had more time to get to know her.