Dead End (20 page)

Barbara Spacey pulled a chair forward, to be closer to Parnell, as she had been at their previous session, and slumped into it. The voluminous clothes concealed her like an enveloping curtain, but beneath the folds Parnell knew she would be overlapping the seat.

She said: ‘Sorry buddy. Company instructions. Every care for someone in distress. They want another assessment.'

‘I'm not in …' started Parnell and stopped, his mind focused, far ahead of this conversation. ‘Two assessments?'

The you-know-how-it-is movement ruffled Barbara Spacey's layers of clothes like feathers. ‘You really want to discuss – to
try
to discuss – the circumstances? Let's give everyone a break here! How do families look after families?'

‘Most of the time by not smothering each other.'

‘No, that's a cop-out. You realize how much support Dubette are offering?'

‘I won't be smothered! The way it's going, you'll know – Dubette will know – more about me than I know about myself.'

‘Isn't that what families do?' persisted the woman. Her hands were twitching over her handbag, which Parnell guessed contained her cigarettes.

‘No, that's smothering, as I already told you.'

‘I've got to do what I've got to do,' said the woman. ‘Give
me
a break, OK?'

To co-operate would be the quickest way to get rid of the psychologist, Parnell realized. ‘OK.'

‘Tell me how you feel?'

‘I already told you.'

‘Tell me again.'

‘Confused.'

‘Frightened?'

Parnell examined the question. ‘No, I don't feel frightened. I suppose I should, but at this moment I don't.'

‘Why not? You're right, you should.'

‘I don't know.'

‘You think you can solve it, all by yourself?'

Parnell hesitated again. ‘No, of course I don't think that! I'm a scientist, not a detective.'

‘But you've thought about it, solving it by yourself, exacting your own justice maybe?'

Barbara Spacey's prescience was unnerving. ‘Sure I've thought about it! Wouldn't anyone?'

‘I'm glad you're being honest.'

‘How can you tell?'

‘We did this before, remember?'

Parnell didn't. ‘Is that it?'

‘I think so.' Her hands were actually moving, scratching at her handbag.

‘Do I get a copy, like before?'

‘It's the law,' she reminded him.

‘Like not smoking?'

‘What's your point?'

‘What's your verdict?'

Barbara Spacey smiled. ‘That confirms it.'

‘What the hell's that mean?'

‘What I was deciding.'

‘You ducking my question?'

The psychologist shook her head. ‘You're not so much of the asshole that you were before.'

For several moments Parnell stared at her across the desk, stunned. At last he said: ‘So, what's that make me now?'

‘That's the mystery,' admitted Barbara Spacey. ‘I don'tknow.'

From behind the dividing glass between the two offices, Kathy Richardson was gesturing towards the telephone. To the psychologist, Parnell said: ‘Maybe you'll never know. I analyse mysteries. I don't want to have it happen to me.'

Barbara Spacey smiled. ‘I've got to go. I'm dying for a cigarette.'

Kathy Richardson was at the door, waiting to enter, as the psychologist left. The secretary said: ‘The FBI want a meet with you tomorrow, wherever you want. They're suggesting ten o'clock.'

‘Tell them ten o'clock's fine. At the Washington field office, to save him coming all the way out here.'

Fifteen

B
ut for the fact that there was no facial resemblance – which didn't alter Parnell's immediate impression – the two men confronting him in the FBI's Washington field office could have been twins. They were both of the same indeterminate height and build and wore their mousy hair short and neatly parted to the left. The spectacles were rimless, the style minimal, their faces unlined by apparent worry or concentration. They didn't smile, either. The suits were grey, the faint check difficult to detect, the ties matching but subdued red. Parnell guessed the identical pins in their lapels represented a college fraternity. Howard Dingley, his seniority marked by his being behind the uncluttered desk, wore a signet ring on the little finger of his left hand. His partner, David Benton, didn't. Instead a copper rheumatism-preventing bracelet protruded slightly from beneath the left arm of his double-cuffed shirt.

Dingley said: ‘We've got ourselves a very high-profile investigation here, Mr Parnell – high-profile because of what was attempted against you after Ms Lang's murder. You any idea how lucky you were that Ms Lang made that call?'

‘No, I don't suppose I have, not fully,' admitted Parnell. ‘I'm still trying to understand what the hell's going on.' There was the familiar buzz-saw sound to
Ms
.

‘That's what we're trying to do.
Have
to do,' said Benton.

‘And why you're the key to everything,' said Dingley.

Predictably the accents matched, clipped, in-a-hurry East Coast, which Parnell believed he could already isolate – guess at least – from the more leisurely Midwest or West Coast. ‘That's why I'm here, to do all – everything – I can do to help.'

‘That's what we wanted to hear,' said Benton. ‘Tell us about AF209.'

‘There's nothing to tell,' said Parnell. ‘I don't know what it was doing in Rebecca's bag. Her job was to liaise with Dubette's overseas subsidiaries. There are a lot. It has to be something to do with that: a flight on which a shipment came in.'

‘A particular flight which both your GCHQ and our National Security Agency picked up while listening to suspected terrorist chatter,' said Dingley. ‘As well as French security. Which was why it was cancelled four times.'

‘I know. I can't help you,' said Parnell.

‘How do you know?' seized Benton.

‘It was stated in court, when I was released.'

‘What's your take on it?' demanded Benton. ‘Your arrest – the way Metro DC police behaved?'

‘You mean, what do I think?'

Dingley nodded.

‘I don't know,' stumbled Parnell, awkwardly. ‘I mean, I know what happened, but I don't know how or why.'

‘Tell us about Ms Lang,' said Benton.

It came as a shock to Parnell to realize how very little he actually did know about Rebecca. ‘We met at Dubette. Started seeing each other. A relationship began. Her father was American, her mother Italian. Both dead now …' He stopped, in full recollection. ‘In a car crash. As far as I know, her only relation is an uncle, who owns Giorgio's Pizzeria on Wisconsin. It's called Giorgio's. His name is Giorgio Falcone. She was a graduate of Georgetown University, here in DC. Worked at Johns Hopkins before joining Dubette. She was attached to the division co-ordinating their overseas subsidiary's laboratories.'

The two FBI agents looked at him, waiting.

‘Yes?' prompted Dingley.

‘That's about it,' said Parnell.

Benton frowned. ‘I thought you were getting married?'

‘We'd decided to live together. I guess with the eventual intention of getting married.'

‘But you hadn't learned a lot about each other?' said Dingley.

‘That's what people live together for, isn't it? To learn about each other,' said Parnell. He wasn't sounding very intelligent, Parnell realized – forthcoming even. Before there could be any further questions, Parnell said: ‘I have thought about things … about that Sunday.'

‘We'd like to hear about it,' urged Benton.

It began in a disorganized rush but Parnell stopped, correcting his chronology and his calculation of how he and Rebecca must have been under surveillance throughout their visit to Chesapeake. Towards the end of the account, Dingley began nodding in agreement.

Benton said: ‘That's how we've got it figured. And why you're the key.'

They weren't making notes, so Parnell assumed the conversation was being recorded, although there was no obvious apparatus.

‘What about Ms Lang's friends?' asked Dingley.

‘I never met any.'

‘Not a one?' demanded Benton, disbelievingly.

‘No,' said Parnell, knowing how empty it sounded. ‘She didn't … I don't know … it never came up.'

‘You're telling us that Ms Lang didn't have a single friend, apart from you?'

‘I'm telling you that she never introduced me to anyone. It was a new relationship.'

‘Old enough for you to decide to move in together,' challenged Dingley.

‘There hadn't been a chance to meet any of her friends. I work a lot. We were down to about one day a week, mostly a Sunday.'

‘You have dangerous chemicals out at Dubette?' asked Benton.

‘I'm not attached to the chemical division, but yes, I'd expect there to be dangerous chemicals on the premises.'

‘Ricin? Sarin? Stuff like that?' pressed Dingley.

‘They're chemical-weapons agents, with no therapeutic value. I doubt anything like that would be there.'

‘Let me tell you how my mind's working,' invited Dingley. ‘A terrorist group discover there's an aeroplane shipping route, between Paris and Washington. They make a contact, get tipped off in advance when there's a shipment of something toxic – something that could have the same effect as a chemical weapon if it got loose. They put a bomb on the plane, timed to go off just before landing here in Washington DC. Bang! We got another nine-eleven, but this time we got a chemical fallout, as well as maybe four hundred people blown out the sky. How's that sound?'

‘It sounds horrifying. It also sounds like you're suggesting that Rebecca was the source, which is absolute and utter nonsense. She never had any terrorist associations.'

‘How do you know?' said Benton. ‘You never met a single one of her friends, according to what you've told us.'

‘What I've told you is the truth. I'm also telling you you're going about things the wrong way to try to link Rebecca into any sort of terrorist association.'

‘Ms Lang gets rammed into a gorge and is killed. You come pretty damned close to getting charged with it. What had you, the two of you, done to make someone want to fit you up like that?' asked Benton.

‘Nothing!' insisted Parnell. ‘I know it sounds ridiculous but I can't think of anything sufficient for someone to want to kill Rebecca and get me accused of doing it.'

‘You're right, Mr Parnell,' agreed Dingley. ‘It does sound ridiculous.'

They didn't believe him: thought he was holding something back, decided Parnell. Less hurriedly than he'd recounted his realization of how they must have been watched, Parnell told the two doubting agents about Rebecca's Sunday confession of her previous relationship and the pregnancy termination, almost without pause continuing with her persistent curiosity at being bypassed with something involving Dubette's French ancillaries, with Dwight Newton's odd misunderstanding in mind as he talked.

The two men facing him remained expressionless. Benton said: ‘You think there's a significance there somewhere?'

‘I don't
know
,' said Parnell, regretting the exasperation the moment he spoke. ‘You asked me to tell you anything that might help, and that's what I'm trying to do. I know how empty, how unhelpful, it all sounds.'

‘We know you're under a lot of strain, Mr Parnell,' said Dingley. ‘And that you've lost someone very close. We're just trying to build a picture.'

‘And I know I'm not doing a lot to help,' apologized Parnell.

‘You got any lead to the man with whom Ms Lang had the previous relationship?' asked Dingley.

Parnell shook his head. ‘Her uncle thinks his name was Alan and that he lived in the DC area. It was about two years ago.' He hesitated. ‘I wouldn't imagine her uncle knows anything about the termination.'

‘We know how to be discreet,' said Benton.

‘I'm sorry.'

‘You asked the uncle about this man then?'

‘Yes.'

‘When?'

‘After the court discharged me.'

‘Why?'

‘I'm trying to find out what's going on, just as you are!'

‘It's our job to find out what's going on: that's what we're trained for,' said Benton. ‘We don't want you playing amateur detective, Mr Parnell. Apart from that being dangerous, you might foul things up for us, which would mean no one will ever find out what's going on.'

‘Dangerous?' isolated Parnell.

‘Someone's already been killed!' said Dingley, letting his exasperation show now. ‘Hasn't it occurred to you that, having failed to put you in the frame for it, whoever murdered Ms Lang might make a move on you?'

‘No. No, it hadn't,' admitted Parnell, incredulously. ‘My lawyer … no, it doesn't matter …'

‘Everything matters,' said Benton. ‘What about your lawyer?'

‘He told me to be careful not to give the Metro police any excuse to come at me again … driving, stuff like that. But I never thought beyond that, to there being some physical danger from anywhere else.'

‘Think about it now. And take your lawyer's advice,' said Benton.

‘But most of all take ours,' added Dingley. ‘Let us do the investigating.'

‘That's all I did, tried to find out about the other man.'

‘Which we'll now do,' said Dingley.

‘If someone did make a move against me, it could help, couldn't it? If they made mistakes, I mean.'

The silence seemed to last a long time before Dingley said: ‘And if they didn't make a mistake and managed to kill you, it maybe wouldn't help us at all and certainly wouldn't help you.'