The Book of Air and Shadows - Michael Gruber [172]
“No, and I want to thank you for bringing it to my attention. We should have more of these brotherly talks—I feel so terrifically up now. Gosh, and what a shame Mutti didn’t stick around to see the prodigal return in glory to judge the living and the dead. She would’ve been so proud!”
Paul ignored my sarcasm as he almost always does and replied mildly, “Yes, I’ve always regretted it. Are we finished with this, by the way? Because I have some thoughts about your present situation.”
After that, we talked strategy, and he developed his idea that the whole thing was a con and what that meant for our actions while in the U.K., and I thought he made sense. Of course it was a con. Wasn’t everything?
The plane landed. We drove to London, in a limo supplied by Osborne Security Service, the security firm Paul had engaged. The driver, one Brown, was an agent of said firm and according to Paul an ex-SAS piano wire artist. He did not impress me, being rather slight and weaselly in appearance. At the hotel I had rather too much to drink—understandable under the circumstances, I believe—and went to bed. In the morning, far too early, I awoke to a crushing headache, a foul, dry tongue, and my brother, dressed in his clericals, with the information that we were moving immediately. Apparently, his security team had spotted some bad guys and we needed to shake them. I allowed him to get me together and in short order we had picked up Crosetti, who seemed to have turned into a hostile little twerp overnight. He was barely civil on the ride to Oxford.
I may have dozed but awoke to Paul’s voice describing something he had found at some church in the old City. He thought it was the grille Bracegirdle had used to encipher the letters, which I suppose was a major find, but, frankly, I could not work up much interest at the time. I am a man of settled habits, as I believe I have indicated, and zooming around in cars in foreign parts holds no attraction. I noticed young Crosetti’s eyes were shining, though, and I might have drifted back to sleep were it not for Paul’s mentioning that this grille had been swiped by a young woman. Who else could it have been? I dismissed out of hand Crosetti’s opinion that it could also have been Carolyn Rolly. The crime had Miranda’s prints all over it: the innocent come-on, the inveigling into the confidence of the perhaps lonely curate, the swift, violent denouement…Miranda! I didn’t even bother to argue with him. I recall thinking that we have the ciphers so she had to come to us with her grille, and I recall a sense of anticipation such as I have rarely known, like a kid on the way to a carnival.
We approached the outskirts of Oxford as it was, getting on toward noon, and I was growing hungry. I mentioned this to Paul and he told me that we were to meet Oliver March in a country pub. Shortly after this information passed, Brown started to drive like a lunatic, swerving across four lanes of the M40 at the last moment to shoot onto the A40 and then quickly leaving that for a local road, just west of Oxford.
Crosetti asked him if he were trying to lose our pursuers and Brown replied, “No, just one of them.” After this we roared down smaller roads, throwing up rooster tails of water and mud and tossing us all around unmercifully. I caught a look at my companions, who seemed to be enjoying the ride,