Mind the Gap

Page 20

  "Silly girl," she whispered, and swept across the street.

  The trees of Green Park cast long fingers of shade across the lawns. She spied an empty bench and recalled sit-ting with Stevie yesterday, pretending to be more than just his mate. Pretending to be a normal seventeen-year-old girl who fancied an entirely ordinary boy. Much as the upside world had its terrors for her, the memory of those hours made her strangely sad.

  Without another glance at the trees, she grabbed the rail-ing and hurried down the stairs into Green Park Tube station. The bag over her shoulder felt heavier with every step and she shifted to accommodate it. Jazz moved past a cluster of tourists trying to figure out the map of the Underground and reached into her pocket for her Travelcard. Her flight from Willow Square to Green Park had taken less than four min-utes; her heart still raced. She cast a quick look around but saw no familiar faces —neither friend nor foe. Then she slipped through the turnstile and hurried down a tiled corri-dor toward the platform.

  From the tunnels came the rumble of an approaching train and the squeal as it began to brake. Jazz held the bag against her, still feeling the weight of that strange blade, and picked up her pace. The train arrived as she joined the crowd on the platform. Out of habit and the instinct Harry had worked to instill in her, she plunged into the thickest part of the crowd as though heading for a door in the center, then cut across toward the next car. She stepped onto the train and immediately began walking. Jazz unzipped the bag, stuffed the pink hat into it, then zipped it closed again, moving as unobtrusively as possible.

  People jostled one another, a few taking the open seats but most standing, holding on wherever they could. Jazz stood beside the doors between cars and put her back to the wall. She kept her head forward so her hair veiled her face. The train pulled away and she exhaled, willing herself to calm down.

  Like some amusement-park ride, the cars rattled over the tracks, twisted through the Underground, and soon be-gan to slow for the next stop. Just before they pulled into the illuminated area of the station, she glanced out the window and saw the flicker of motion, the luminescent outline of one of the ghosts of old London. Jazz blinked, startled to see a specter beyond the limits of the abandoned parts of the Underground. But then she saw the top hat and the way the magician shot his cuffs just before a trick. She bent to peer out the window, and just before she lost sight of him, he pro-duced a phantom dove from thin air. It flapped white silk wings and flew up into the darkness of the tunnel.

  The train hissed as it slowed, crawling into the station.

  "Piccadilly Circus," a recorded voice said. "Next stop, Leicester Square. "

  The doors slid open.

  "Mind the gap," said the voice.

  People flooded off the train. Piccadilly was a major stop. Jazz took an empty seat in the corner and kept her head down. Someone settled into the next seat, bumping her, and another crowd began to fill the car.

  The man beside her set down his shoulder bag.

  "Youre very good, you know," he said. "Stealthy and quick, with a deft touch. Id no idea anyone else was in the house. "

  Jazz froze. The doors closed and the train began to pull out of the station. Leicester Square seemed a thousand miles away. The other people in the car loomed up around her. To them, she might as well have been invisible. Shed done that much correctly. No one had noticed her —or the well-dressed man seated beside her. But with the people packed in, she had nowhere to run.

  "On the street, though, you could use some work," he went on. "You were watching for pursuit by foot, never con-sidering an alternative. The taxi that nearly struck your little friend and me? I hired it. Once you came out of the alley and crossed to that arcade, it was obvious you were headed for Green Park. Had you hired a taxi of your own, it would have made things difficult. And I suppose if Id been unfamiliar with this part of the city, you might have lost me when you first entered the alley. That much was intuition on my part, I confess. Where else could you have gone so quickly? A shop or restaurant wouldnt guarantee you a rear exit unless youd planned that in advance, and your friends clumsiness made clear that you had not considered your retreat care-fully enough. So, the alley.

  "From there, it was easier than youd imagine to avoid detection while following you down into the Tube station. And so, here we are. "

  Jazz gripped the strap of her bag so tightly that she felt her fingernails cutting crescents into the flesh of her palm. * She forced herself to lift her head and look at the man. Only inches separated his face from hers. She inhaled slowly, steadying her nerves, and when she did she breathed in the warmth of his own exhaled breath. The intimacy of the mo-ment startled her.

  She closed her eyes and cleared her head. When she opened them, she thought she would find anger on his face. Shed thought his words were mockery. But he stud-ied her with open fascination, his eyes an intense icy blue that she could not turn away from. He carried himself like an older man, but could not have been more than thirty-five. The game of cat and mouse that had begun back in that house in Willow Square had just come to a conclusion. For a moment, she nearly apologized for stealing the trea-sure he had gone there seeking. To her it was nothing more than an artifact, something to sell, or for Harry Fowler to put on a shelf or in a box with his collection of trinkets and oddities the others had brought home for him over the years. Jazz had stolen it on a whim, but it had been this mans only goal.

  But she would not apologize. She would simply deny it, play the encounter as coyly as possible, and look for an op-portunity to flee. With Stevie, shed rehearsed a number of things a young woman might scream to make onlookers think she was being accosted.

  But she said none of those things.

  "Youre not angry anymore," Jazz said. "Why?"

  "The day has taken a curious and unexpected turn," said the thief, "but an interesting one. "

  The train began to slow. Jazz glanced at the doors, tried to determine if she would be able to push through the crowd and get out before him, and if there was anything she could do to slow him down. No way would she lead him back to Harry and the others, not when theyd just had to relocate. Well dressed he might be, but she had a feeling this man would follow her —and the contents of her bag—anywhere.

  So how could she escape him?

  The answer troubled her. She would have to hurt him, because otherwise there was every chance that he would hurt her. No way in hell was this bloke going to let her walk away with what shed stolen.

  When she glanced at him again, he must have seen dark thoughts in her eyes.

  "Ah, thats a shame, then. Id hoped to avoid ugliness. "

  "How?"

  The speakers on the train crackled. "Leicester Square," said the electronic voice. "Next stop, Covent Garden. "

  The thief gave her a charming, beguiling smile. "Con-tinue on with me one stop. Theres a lovely cafe that re-minds me a great deal of Paris. Let me buy you a coffee and well have a chat. We experienced a remarkable coincidence today, and I cant imagine you arent at least a tiny bit curi-ous about how we happened to come together. For my part, Im certainly curious about you. "

  The doors hissed open.

  Jazz tensed, ready to plunge through the people jammed onto the train to get off. The thief only watched her, making no move to keep her there.

  The moment went on for several beats and then the doors closed again.

  They sat side by side in silence. When the train pulled* into Covent Garden station the thief rose, threaded through commuters, and stepped off onto the platform. He started walking away, then paused and looked back.

  Jazz got off the train and followed.

  ****

  When hed said the cafe was in Covent Garden, Jazz had as-sumed he meant on the piazza. Shed only been there a few times and, to her, the restaurants and shops and the street performers entertaining the crowds on a summer day on the, piazza was Covent Garden. But the Augusta Cafe was ne
stled away amid the trees and flowers of Embankment Gardens, away from the crowds.

  "Would you like the patio or the terrace?" asked the host-ess, a girl not much older than Jazz. Her accent revealed her as a northerner, likely in London for university. "The patios lovely today, but you can see the river from the terrace. "

  The thief looked quite at home in the midst of the fancy cafe, and he charmed the hostess with his roguish smile. "Not sure I want to look at the Thames. Never quite makes me want to go for a swim. "

  The dark-haired girl wrinkled her nose, grinning. "Can you imagine? Its pretty to look at, but youd catch some-thing dreadful. So its the patio, then?"

  Jazz had felt invisible to them, but then the thief looked at her as though they shared some grand jest.

  "What do you think, love?"

  "It sounds perfect," Jazz found herself saying, as though theyd rehearsed these lines. That was what it felt like —a performance.

  The hostess led them on a winding path among the ta-bles on the patio. Several were occupied by men and women who were obviously there on business, with clients or associates. At one sat a burly bearded man in a T-shirt and jeans with an attractive dark-complexioned woman who held his hand across the tabletop. From their clothes and the relaxed air about them, she marked them as Americans. From an-other table came a steady stream of French spoken by a pair of fiftyish women holidaying together.

  Jazz observed them all, careful not to let them notice her attention. When the thief pulled out a chair for her, she sat down. The hostess left them with menus and then hurried back to her post, where a white-haired gentleman with a newspaper under one arm awaited her.

  In a tank top and cotton trousers, Jazz soaked up the warmth of the sun. She had deprived herself of it for so much of the time since she had gone on the run that she could not help relishing it now. The tables all had umbrellas that provided shade, but she wanted to feel the heat on her skin. The breeze that blew across the patio and rustled in the leaves of the trees was redolent with the scents of a dozen different flowers.

  "You approve," the thief said.

  Jazz had been avoiding his blue eyes. Now she forced herself to look at him. The man sat in the shade of the um-brella. At any other time, he would have blended perfectly into the scene on the patio. Jazz would have blended as well —just an ordinary London girl, out and about on a sum-mer day. But together, they were an odd enough pairing to draw attention. It worried her.

  "Its beautiful here," she admitted, reaching up to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear. "Im just not sure what Im supposed to say to you. Given how we met, I mean. "

  He cocked his head, studying her, and tried to hide the smile that touched his lips. "Well, I certainly think we both worked hard today. Id say weve earned a peaceful moment or two, not to mention coffee.

  They do the most remarkable Italian coffees here. The cappuccino is lovely. There are iced coffees as well. Or if you prefer tea —"

  "Im fine with coffee. "

  "Good. " He leaned forward and tapped the menu. "The last page. Theyve got quite the variety. "

  With that, he began perusing the menu as if they had nothing more important to discuss than coffee.

  Jazz stared at him for several moments, but then she glanced nervously around. What the hell had she been thinking, coming here with him?

  Certainly he had made her curious, but Jazz wasnt shal-low enough to become a fool just because some handsome man intrigued her. Hed given her no choice, really. If shed fought him, even if shed managed to get the better of him on the train or in the station, theyd have drawn enough at-tention that the police would be summoned. She might get nicked, which terrified her. Her mother had taught her that the police could not be trusted, and given what the mayor had been up to, that seemed truer than ever. But if shed simply run, she would have led him back to the United Kingdom, putting her friends in danger.

  No choice.

  She glanced around again. Sitting on the patio of the cafe, perusing a menu of exotic coffees, felt like a masquer-ade. Out there in the open, anyone might see her. The Uncles and their BMW men couldnt be everywhere, but this was simply throwing caution to the wind. Jazz did not enjoy the damp and the darkness of the Underground, but it represented safety.

  Laughter rippled in the air. She glanced across the gar-dens and saw a little girl, no more than three, chasing a boy of around the same age while their parents strolled along a path behind them. The father held a red balloon.

  Jazz felt the muscles in her neck and shoulders begin to loosen.

  An hour in the sun. A cup of coffee. It wouldnt kill her. She thought of Cadge as she watched those children play and how he would have smiled to see them. He would have hated this handsome gentleman thief on principle, but the cafe. . . Cadge would have loved the cafe.

  The waiter —a tall, athletic bloke with a shaved head and artfully groomed chin stubble—approached.

  "Hello, Im Rob. Have you decided what youd like, or shall I give you more time?"

  Jazz and the thief regarded each other over the tops of their menus. He arched an eyebrow, lips pressed into a thin smile.

  "Look at you," she said. "So bloody pleased with your-self. "

  He blinked in surprise and then grinned.

  Jazz looked at the waiter. "Iced coffee with a double shot of espresso and just a dash of cream. "

  Handsome Rob nodded, smiling bemusedly. "Excel-lent. " He turned to the thief. "And you, sir?"

  "Cappuccino, frosted with cinnamon. And a glass of ice water, if you would. "

  "Straightaway. "

  He gathered their menus and headed back into the cafe. When hed gone, and without the menus to focus on, Jazz and the thief had nothing else to distract them from each other.

  "I suppose the first order of business ought to be names," he said. "Im Terence. " He offered her his hand, leaning out of the umbrellas shade.

  "Jazz," she said, reaching out to shake.

  His grip was firm but brief. Meant only as a greeting, not to intimidate.