“As I told you, Samir loved to talk, but never about his family. I knew only what everyone else did—he was Algerian, attended the Sorbonne, then Berkeley in the United States. He did tell me once he fit right in with the students at Berkeley. They were evidently of like mind. And that’s a scary thought.” She took another sip of tea, laughed. “The reason he was interested in me is that I was his entrée into a society that otherwise would have excluded him despite his being something of a celebrity. I realized, of course, that I was forbidden fruit. He gloried in enraging my father, stirring up gossip. But you must know more about his family than I do.”
John said, “He had two married sisters living the high life in Paris. His father and mother still live in Algeria, third-generation owners of a successful vineyard. His father has been an invalid for several years now, and his mother runs the winery. No other close living relatives. As you know, one of his primary operatives here in Britain, one of his most trusted, was Bahar Zain.”
“Yes, the man disguised as the old matron who planted the C-4 packets in St. Paul’s.”
“That’s right. Zain now resides in Wakefield prison in West Yorkshire and will remain there for the remainder of his life, in the high-security unit. He will not have an easy time. As to visitors, I’m told they are few and far between.”
“I’ve heard Wakefield is called Monster Mansion.”
“That refers to the inmates and is well deserved, as Zain has doubtless discovered. I brought him up because, unlike Basara, Bahar Zain has a large family, most of them still living in Syria.We know he has two younger siblings, but we’ve had no reason to search them out, until now. Zain’s mother lives in the West End, owns a chemist shop not far from the South London Mosque.”
Elizabeth sipped her tea and carefully set the lovely cup back onto the tray. She looked at him squarely. “What should I do?”
John rose, came around his desk, and took her hand as she stood up. “You’re going to return to your home, paint, and keep your head down while we investigate. I imagine we’ve already collected whatever evidence they left behind. I’m assigning an officer to protect you. Both your front and back doors are again functional, and they’ve finished with forensics. By the way, there are no cameras aimed directly at the crescent in Eaton Square, but in other cameras nearby, they spotted a black Ford with its license marker covered. Did you see it?”
Elizabeth said, “No, I was never outside until I climbed down the oak tree. I imagine there are a great many black Fords in London.”
John said, “Yes, quite a few.” He picked up his mobile, punched in a number, spoke quietly, and punched off.
In a moment Elizabeth turned to see a dark-eyed, stork-thin older man, his face the color of polished mahogany and with only a fringe of black hair around his head, saunter into John’s office like an American film cowboy. John said, “Officer Bentworth Bewley, this is Lady Elizabeth Palmer. She will give you background and bring you up to date on what’s happened, though I assume you already know the highlights. You are to protect her. Retrieve a weapon from the armory.”
Officer Bewley nodded. He said to Elizabeth with a smile that showed a crooked eyetooth, “Bentworth is a mouthful, so please call me Benny, Lady Elizabeth, everyone does.” He saw the hesitancy in her eyes and added, “Trust me. No one is going to harm you on my watch. Let’s go get me armed.”
When they left, John sat down, finished his tea, and leaned his head against the soft leather headrest of his chair. The twomen in an Aston Martin, both wearing black watch caps and dark sunglasses, had followed her, waiting for their chance to kill her? Trying to run her down on the sidewalk with a car was hardly a plan, it must have been a spur-of-the moment decision. What they’d done today, breaking into her house in the middle of the morning, opening fire when she refused to open the door, wasn’t any smarter, hardly professional. It didn’t make sense to him.
There was urgency at work here, or ungoverned rage. Family, he thought, or someone else very close to Bahar Zain or Samir Basara. Bahar Zain’s younger brothers? Had someone fed them lies about her, spurred them on? Zain’s mother? The new imam at the South London Mosque, Ali Ahmad Said?
John pushed the thumb drive back into his computer and wrote another text to Khaled:Have Bahar Zain’s siblings ever attended South London Mosque? Has their mother?I will send you a file on Lady Elizabeth Palmer. Acknowledge receipt and give me your thoughts.
John pressed send and poured himself another cup of tea. It was up to him now to find whoever was trying to kill Lady Elizabeth Palmer. And to keep her alive.
Chapter Five
Eaton Square
Tuesday night
Elizabeth stared at her darkened ceiling, still wide awake in her lovely sleigh bed at 2:00a.m. Even though Officer Bewley was sleeping down the hall and had assured her the locks were secure, it wasn’t enough to make her heart stop racing, listening for every sound that shouldn’t be there. She looked back toward the bedroom window, saw herself escaping that morning. But she’d done it, she’d saved herself, she should never forget that. She nearly screamed when she heard a footstep on the creaky seventh stair, then nothing. Could it be Benny, making rounds? No, she’d pointed out the stair to Benny, so he knew it creaked, and besides, why would he step on it and then stop?
It was someone else, not Benny Bewley. Whoever it was realized he’d made a noise and froze, waiting to see if he’d awakened them. Was it the two of them again? The two in the Aston Martin, the two who’d broken into her house that morning? No, no, her brain was making it up out of whole cloth. No one was here in her house, no one was climbing her stairs. Still, Elizabeth slid quietly out of bed, picked up a poker from the bin beside the fireplace, tiptoed to the door, carefully opened it a couple of inches, and listened.
She heard nothing.
She started to call out Benny’s name but stopped herself. She kept listening, not moving, barely breathing. It had to be nothing, had to be, but still she was so scared she couldn’t get spit in her mouth. Suddenly the bedroom door slammed open against her, knocking her backward against her bed. She yelled, “Benny, help!”
Two men in dark clothes were on her, masks covering their faces. One grabbed her hair and jerked her up. She slammed the poker at his head, but he pulled away in time and the poker struck his shoulder. She heard a gasp, then a curse in sharp clear English. The other man grabbed her leg to upend her, but she jumped away from him, yelled out again, “Benny!”
“Bitch! Shut up!” A fist slammed into her face, knocked her down on her back. The man she’d struck with the poker stood over her, a knife in his hand, the silver blade gleaming in the moonlight coming through the window, long and sharp. Was he going to kill her with it? She slashed upward with the poker, striking him in the leg, and the man screamed. “Get that bloody poker away from her and hold the bitch down! I’m going to cut up that pretty face.”
Elizabeth didn’t think, she fought with all her strength. She couldn’t die; who would take care of Tommy? She saw her mom’s face, her father’s face. She struck out with the poker again, but she had no leverage. The knife came down at her and she twisted away from it. She felt a sharp, icy-cold pain as it sliced into her arm.
Knife man jerked the poker out of her hand, came down on his knees over her, and raised the knife again.
Benny’s voice came from the doorway. “Get off her now or you’re both dead!”
Knife man jerked around and hurled the knife at Benny in a move so fast it was a blur at the same time Benny fired. Knife man fell to his side, gasping for breath, cursing, this time not in English, but in Arabic, a curse she’d heard Samir say. She didn’tthink, kicked him off her, grabbed the poker, and struck out at him again. He backed away from her.
She looked over at Benny, who’d fallen to the floor, grasping his chest. The second man grabbed his partner, heaved him up over his shoulder, and ran out of the room. She heard his footsteps in the wide hallway and down the stairs, heard the front door slam.
