The Unlikely Spy(92)
Harry noticed Vicary standing there silently and came over to him. They stood side by side for a long moment, neither speaking, like mourners at a graveside, Vicary softly beating his pockets for his half-moon reading glasses.
"It could be a coincidence," Harry said, "but I really don't believe in them. Especially when it involves a dead woman with a bullet through the eye." Harry paused, finally showing emotion. "Christ, I've never seen anyone do it like that. Street thugs don't shoot people in the face. Only professionals do."
"Who found the body?"
"A passerby. They've questioned him. His story seems to check out."
"How long has she been dead?"
"Just a few hours. Which means she would have been killed in the late afternoon or early evening."
"And no one heard the shot?"
"No."
"Perhaps the weapon was silenced?"
"Could have been."
The superintendent came over.
"Well, if it isn't Harry Dalton, the man who cracked the Spencer Thomas case." The superintendent glanced at Vicary; then his gaze returned to Harry. "I'd heard you were working for the irregulars now."
Harry managed a weak smile. "Hello, guv."
Vicary said, "I'm declaring this a security matter as of now. You'll have the necessary paperwork on your desk in the morning. I want Harry to coordinate the investigation. Everything should go through him. Harry will draft a statement in your name. I want this described as a robbery that went wrong. Describe the wound accurately. Don't play around with the details of the crime scene. I want the statement to say the police are searching for a pair of refugees of undetermined origin seen in the park around the time of the murder. And I want your men to proceed with discretion. Thank you, Superintendent. Harry, I'll see you first thing in the morning."
Harry and the superintendent watched Vicary limp down the hill and vanish into the soggy blackness. The superintendent turned to Harry. "Jesus Christ, what's his bloody problem?"
Harry stayed in Hyde Park until the body was taken away. It was after midnight. He hitched a lift from one of the police officers. He could have called for a department car but he didn't want the department to know where he was going. He got out of the car a short distance from Grace Clarendon's flat and walked the rest of the way. She had given him his old key back, and he let himself inside without knocking. Grace always slept like a child--on her stomach, arms and legs sprawled, a pale foot poking from beneath the covers. Harry undressed quietly in the dark and tried to slip into bed without waking her. The bedsprings groaned beneath his weight. She stirred, rolled over, and kissed him.
"I thought you'd left me again, Harry."
"No, just a very long, very dirty night."
She leaned on one elbow. "What happened?"
Harry told her. Harry told her everything.
"It's possible she was killed by the agent we're looking for."
"You look like you've seen a ghost."
"It was bad. She was shot in the face. It's hard to forget something like that, Grace."
"Can I make you forget?"
He had just wanted to sleep. He was exhausted, and being around a body always made him feel dirty. But she began to kiss him, very slowly at first, and softly. Then she was begging him to help her out of her flowered flannel nightshirt, and the madness began. She always made love to him as if she were possessed, clawing and scratching at his body, pulling at him as if trying to draw venom from a wound. And when he entered her she wept and pleaded with him never to leave her again. And afterward, as she lay next to him sleeping, Harry was struck by the most awful thought of his life. He found himself hoping her husband would never come back from the war.
34
LONDON
They gathered around a large model of a Mulberry harbor the following afternoon in a secret room at 47 Grosvenor Square: senior American and British officers assigned to the project; Churchill's personal chief of staff, General Sir Hastings Ismay; and a pair of generals from Eisenhower's staff who sat so still they might have been statues.
The meeting began cordially enough, but after a few minutes tempers flared. There were charges and countercharges, accusations of foot-dragging and distortion, even a few quickly regretted personal insults. The British construction estimates were too rosy! You Americans are being too impatient, too--well, too bloody American! It was the pressure, they all agreed, and they started over at the beginning.
With little more than three months remaining until D-Day, the Mulberry project was falling hopelessly behind schedule. It's the bloody Phoenixes, drawled an English officer who happened to be assigned to one of Mulberry's more successful components.
But it was the truth: the giant concrete caissons, backbone of the entire project, were perilously behind schedule. There were so many problems it might have been funny if the stakes weren't so high. There were critical shortages of concrete and critical shortages of steel for reinforcement rods. There were too few construction sites and no room in Britain's south coast harbors to moor finished units. There were shortages of skilled workers, and the workers they had on the job were weak and malnourished because there were critical shortages of food.