“I don’t have to prove it,” she replied. “They’ll probably never go to prison, but I want it hung around their necks.”

“Are you going to resign?”

“No, but I’ll bloody well see that Palmer and Prior do. I’ll go to the prime minister if I have to.”

“I’ll be downstairs.” He turned to go, but she stopped him.

“Stone, did Hackett admit that he was Whitestone?”

“He wouldn’t confirm or deny it,” Stone said. “He kept referring to Whitestone in the third person. Still . . .”

“I think he was Whitestone. That’s what I’m going to put out. I want an end to all this.”

“You would know better than I how to handle it in London,” he said. The light went out on the phone. Downstairs, Stone found Mike Freeman talking to Captain Scott Smith, and he joined them.

“You can’t think of any business reason why anyone would want to do this?” Smith was asking Freeman.

Freeman shook his head. “I’ve been going over this in my mind since Stone called me, and I can’t see how it could be business-related,” he said.

“Surely, yours is the kind of business where a man could make enemies,” Smith said, sounding skeptical.

“You’d have to understand Jim,” Freeman replied. “He was a charming man, and he went out of his way to treat people decently, even those who didn’t like him. He worked hard not to make enemies.”

“How about a competitor? Surely, he would be resented by people who had lost contracts to him.”

Freeman thought about it. “I think that, in his early days, he went after business pretty hard, but for the ten years I’ve been with him, he pretty much sat back and let the business come to him. He was a very popular man.”

“Was he married?”

“Divorced, many years ago, in England.”

“Has he been seeing someone else’s wife?”

Freeman shook his head. “That wouldn’t be Jim. He loved beautiful and accomplished women, but they were all single.”

“Jealous boyfriend of one of his women?”

Freeman shrugged. “If so, he never mentioned it.”

Stone spoke up. “He would have to be a jealous boyfriend who was a pro at this sort of thing.”

“Agreed,” Smith said. “Should I talk to the lady upstairs about this?” he asked.

Stone shook his head. “She’s a friend visiting from London. She wouldn’t contribute anything to your investigation.” God knows, he thought, that’s true.

55

The three of them sat at dinner, prepared by Seth’s wife, Mary, eating quietly. Mike Freeman’s reticence seemed to affect them all.

“Did you call all your clients?” Stone asked him, in an effort at conversation.

“Just about,” Freeman replied.

“How are they taking it?”

“Shock, mostly.”

“Did you tell them he was murdered?”

“I didn’t have a choice,” Freeman replied. “It’s probably already on the evening news.”

Stone polished off his wine and set down the glass. “Let’s go find out,” he said, looking at his watch. “It’s almost six-thirty.”