Jane Austen Death Squad ~ 10

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Chapter Ten

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Eventually Julia finished the letter. She had no idea if her phrasing was authentic, but at least Sergio thought it was. "Are you sure your GP won't give you a referral to a psychiatrist?" she wondered as she read it over. An outsider might think they were crazy. The situation definitely was.

He smiled sweetly. "I'm only accompanying you."

"I'm not her patient. This is a delicious sandwich, by the way."

"I'll let my mum know," he said when his mother approached again. "Julia likes the sandwich."

"Oh good. You can bring her again when you next visit the doctor."

"But I won't, unless I'm ill. I'm sort of working."

"Are you working too?" she asked Julia.

"Yes, sort of, in a different field."

"Intriguing, how you could sort of work, together," said Sergio's mother. "But it must be secret, so I won't ask you about it."

Contrary to Julia's expectations, she really did not and she wandered away again. That was rather refreshing. Julia wasn't sure her own mother wouldn't have sat down with them to get all the particulars while pretending to be social.

Before leaving the restaurant, they checked the computer, but there was no email from Julia's German friend. She probably had a life.

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Sergio's GP -- or former GP, Julia wasn't sure -- lived a short drive away. It was intriguing how for all their driving around they had never got very far from home, she noticed. He could easily still be a patient here. The doctor was an older woman close to her pension, maybe already past it. She greeted Sergio as if she knew him well, which was at odds with his saying he was never ill. Luckily he was the one who did the explaining.

Mrs Hardy listened intelligently. She appeared to understand the situation immediately. "Of course. I can do that. I don't use calligraphy on my prescriptions, but I can adapt my hand to any situation."

Julia had been looking embarrassed throughout, but it turned out there was no need. She handed over the letters.

"It is not that difficult," Mrs Hardy decided after having read through them. "You've kept the remake short, but if I write a little wide, I could fill a page. They didn't really write very short letters in those days, so it might be odd if I had a lot of white space left."

"Yes, I'm not a writer," Julia apologised. "Of fiction, that is. I write about it, but don't make it up. And I didn't have access to my books, only this letter, and the people we are dealing with believe very much in reusing phrases." She would have been more confident had someone knowledgeable checked her letter first, but she had only had Sergio and he didn't have an inventory of useful Austen quotes at his disposal.

Mrs Hardy went to a drawer and selected a few sheets. She laid them side by side on the table and made a further selection. Then she took a wooden box with what looked like calligraphy pens. She nodded towards the other half of the room. "Make yourselves comfortable there, if you like, if it bores you to watch. I'll be done in an hour."

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"She's a brilliant forger," Julia remarked when she slid the new letter into a picture frame. It looked very authentic. She hoped the wording sounded as authentic as it looked. "That's now how you know her, is it?" Maybe the old lady had been arrested once.

"No, I told you she's a GP."

"Oh. Where do we go now?"

"Well, we're still checked into the hotel. Our stuff is there and it's too late to check out, so we might as well go there and set up a meeting with the Dark Lady."

"Who's probably lying in wait in the car park. I'd like to store the original letter somewhere safe, please. I don't want to be ambushed."

Sergio snorted at that. "Ambushed!"

"Please? She knows where we are staying."

"But there's no point in trying to rob us. We'll be giving her the letter. We told her so."

"Except that we really aren't."

"She's not clever enough to come up with that option."

"Someone found out my address and broke into my flat. I wouldn't know how to do either thing. Plus they found Professor Cooper. Don't you underestimate them just a little?" It had been going so well that she was beginning to have doubts.

"I don't know how they managed that," he admitted, although he was the one who had named them the Death Squad. "But that Elizabeth D'Arcy is a fruitcake. She can't have any sort of intelligence."

"Enough to manipulate others into doing her dirty work." Although she conceded that the people doing the intelligent research work might well be on the other side of the globe and unaware of how it was being put to use. You could find out anything over the internet.

"Don't you trust me to be able to defend you physically?"

"I do, I do. But I'd still be more comfortable if we left the original somewhere safe."

"Well..." Sergio took a moment to pinpoint their location on his mental map. "The hotel is east and we live west, so we can't drop it off at home or at the police station, which I'd think the safest places. I don't think there's that much of a necessity to take such a detour. I'd humour you if it was on our way, but it isn't."

"Well, all right," Julia gave in. "We'll hang onto it."

---

Sergio had been wondering about Elizabeth D'Arcy as they drove back to the hotel. He didn't think she'd notice she'd be given a fake letter, if she really stuck to what she'd said she'd do with it, namely burn it. If she intended to sell it and make some money, she'd soon find out it was a fake. And then what? But he didn't think it would come that far. She would burn the forgery and return home, thinking she had done Jane a service.

Of course if Julia decided to sell the letter its contents would become well-known in certain circles. Elizabeth might hear about it and go after who had it then. But at least it wouldn't be Julia.

He wondered what Julia would do if this was over. Would they go back to being neighbours who never saw each other?

"I wouldn't mind going on a date or something," he ventured.

Julia was not on the same page. "With Elizabeth D'Arcy?" she asked with a horrified look. She recalled the woman's looks and her being several decades behind in appearance and morals.

"No, with you."

"Oh. I thought we'd skipped right over that stage."

"Where are we now then?"

"I don't know. But you did kiss me already. That is sort of beyond the date stage, isn't it?"

Sergio carefully parked the car. "Right. And you said I should do it more often." He leant to the left and followed up on his words.

As she got out of the car, Julia felt she would be able to knock Elizabeth D'Arcy and her minions to the ground. She nearly made some karate moves, but that would look suspicious. There was no one in sight until she turned the corner. Three women were chatting outside the entrance. They had the right age to be suspect, but she did not stare at them. Sergio was supposed to be right behind her, but not so close as to appear to be with her. She hoped he too would hear the women spoke with transatlantic accents.

Elizabeth D'Arcy was seated behind the computer in the lobby. Of course she was also looking at everyone who came in. Julia had several options. She could go directly up to her room, followed rather obviously by Sergio. Or she could go to the loo, but then Sergio would lose her. Or she could come up with something to ask at reception, as a tourist might.

She waited in line behind an elderly couple who were checking in. This gave her some time to invent a question, as well as to study the door. Sergio came in half a minute later and she hoped he would see Ms D'Arcy.

He did and she saw him too, because she left her chair. "Michele," she called.

He turned. "Oh?"

"Something very interesting. Some of my friends know Pinky and they say she's not a man."

"Oh. Got them fooled then," he said carelessly.

Then the elderly couple in front of her finished and it was Julia's turn. She stuttered as she asked her question about museums and how to get there. She couldn't pay much attention to Sergio and when she next looked, he was gone. So were Ms D'Arcy and the three women who'd been chatting right outside the door.

Julia had Austen's letter and she was glad, but she became very anxious to hide it before she began to investigate where Sergio was. She put it in a huge luggage locker in a room off the lobby and then ran upstairs to their room. Still afraid of an ambush, she opened the door cautiously, but the room wasn't large enough for two people to hide, let alone five. Nobody was there.

From her window she couldn't see into the car park, but she might be able to from the end of the corridor. His car was still there and there was no movement, except a white van turning right into the road. Julia doubted. The timing might fit.

But it couldn't be. Four middle-aged women couldn't possibly abduct a fit younger man. If he had gone with them, he had gone willingly and quietly, for some very good reason. He wouldn't have been abducted in a white van, not with witnesses in the lobby looking on. She hadn't heard a thing.

Was he walking outside with Ms D'Arcy? He could be, a stroll around the hotel to discuss the letter. And he hadn't called out to her because he hadn't wanted to give her identity away. That must be it. Julia was almost reassured as she went back to her room. She looked out of the window, but saw no one.

Waiting wouldn't do her any good. She wished she had Sergio's mobile number. But she had to settle for going back downstairs to explore the grounds of the hotel. If she didn't find anything there, she decided, she would take the letter out of the locker and take the bus to the restaurant of Sergio's father. They would have his mobile number and then she could phone him. He might be back by then, but at least she wouldn't have been idle and worrying. She left a brief note on the desk.

Outside she chose to go left first. Other than the usual guests coming and going, there was nothing of interest. She circled the hotel, sticking to the footpaths, but there was no sign of Sergio or the four women.

They must have gone outside while she was at the reception desk. They couldn't have passed behind her. Although she'd had her back to them, they would have come into sight just before the lift. She checked that again, as well as the bar and restaurant. No one. She decided against taking the letter with her. It was safe here. Then she went to the bus stop.

---

There were no customers inside, it being too late for lunch and too early for dinner, but the restaurant was open and a few people were having drinks outside. Fortunately Sergio's father remembered her. He asked where Sergio was.

She'd been hoping he had gone here, although there was no reason why he should have. "I don't know. I've lost him. That's why I came to ask if you had his mobile phone number."

"But of course. His mama will, I mean. Just a moment."

Julia sat down and nervously tapped her fingers on the table as she watched him phone. What if Sergio had come back to the hotel in the meantime? He'd think she was overreacting. But what else was she supposed to do?