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London

Eaton Square, Belgravia

Monday

Elizabeth had already started putting her stamp on it, her first purchase a lesser-known impressionist painting by Pissarro. She’d hung it in a place of honor over the neoclassical fireplace in the sitting room.

“That guy was a nutter or stoned out of his mind,” the boy said, craning his neck to see if the Aston Martin was still in sight, but of course it wasn’t. He was tall and good looking, his hair in short dreads dyed a fire-hot red. He handed the girl the brolly and gathered up Elizabeth’s groceries. He started to give her the grocer’s bag when he saw how wobbly she was and settled it on his arm. He said, “Maybe the asswipe was stoned, but it seemed to me like he wanted to hit you, I mean he headed right for you. I know that Aston Martin model, it’s a couple of years old, but sorry, I didn’t get the number plate. I think you should call the police.”

Elizabeth realized she’d gotten a glimpse of the driver, but only for a second, long enough to see his dark glasses, a black watch cap pulled down low, and yes—there’d been another man next to him she’d barely seen. The driver had seemed young, maybe about Tommy’s age, and just as out of control, convinced he was immortal.

Elizabeth took two aspirin, carried a bottle of chardonnay to the sitting room, and stretched out on the eighteenth-century brocade sofa, next on her list to be re-covered. She was calmer, in control now, but aches and pains in her back and shoulders started to broadcast. She drank two glasses of chardonnay and sank back against the sofa pillows. The wine helped a bit, until what came crashing back into her mind full blown wasn’t the Aston Martin coming straight at her, it was the horror of her near death a year ago at St. Paul’s, the man dressed like an old woman who’d hidden packets of C-4 throughout the church. She’d never forget his name as long as she lived—Bahar Zain. He was a terrorist, taking orders from Dr. Samir Basara, a handsome, smart, and don’t forget charming Algerian and a renowned professor at the London School of Economics. And she’d slept with Samir, flaunted him in front of her appalled father. In the end she’d realized the face he showed to both her and the world was only a front. He’d used her, sent her to her death. Her father hadn’t said a word when it was over, even when the newspapers had hounded her and her family for weeks about her affair with him, a man who’d been perfectly willing to murder her in St. Paul’s along with hundreds of others. Her mother hadn’t chided her either, ah, but she couldn’t hide the tears or avoid the looks. As for Tommy, bless his heart, he’d hugged her and laughed and whispered in her ear, “Obviously only outdoor weddings for you from now on.”

She jerked awake at the loud hammering of the lion’s-head knocker on her front door. She started to open the door, thought of the Aston Martin swerving toward her, and looked through the peephole. She’d expected to see Viking-lover Giles, but she saw no one. She called out, “Tell me who’s there or I’ll call the police.” She waited, heard nothing, and pulled the entry hall drapery aside to look outside. The night was perfectly black, no stars to see through the still-pounding rain. She heard a car rev and drive away. She called Giles on her mobile and apologized, claimed a migraine, and wished him luck on his sail to Greenland dressed in bearskins. She wondered if he’d take a toothbrush.