THE ROOM fell silent. Jane was stunned and before she could recover her composure, Dave rose to his feet. He walked over to the restaurant entrance to meet a striking blonde. She was beautifully groomed, wore a pale blue shift dress with a matching jacket and carried a small cornflower blue handbag. The First Lady of America had the attention of every pair of eyes in the room.
His greeting was a little more formal than he’d been with Jane, ‘Forgive me ma’am, I’ve delayed lunch for five minutes. There’s somebody I’d like you to meet.’
‘This must be important to you, Dave. I already owe you so much for your valuable help with my War On Want project, I can’t possibly refuse,’ she smiled.
Her bodyguard warned her that this extra meeting was not on the itinerary. She reminded him that the whole restaurant had been checked and double checked and it would be fine. Jane watched as Dave guided the First Lady to their table. She walked across the room with the poise and elegance of Grace Kelly. She was one of the most photographed and written about public figures in the world. Confidence oozed from every well toned muscle in her body. She was an ex-attorney although, unlike Hillary Clinton before her, she had a more traditional approach to the role of First Lady.
Jane rose from her chair as they approached.
Dave spoke first, ‘Jane, I’d like to introduce you to Mrs. Elizabeth Dacre, the First Lady. Ma’am, this is Detective Inspector Jane Blackburn.’
They shook hands but Jane was almost speechless. ‘Ma’am,I..’ she stumbled. The First Lady could sense her awkwardness.
‘Please, call me Elizabeth,’ she said. ‘Should we sit down?’
The maitre d’ hovered and enquired if the President’s wife would like a drink.
‘No thank you, Bill. I’ll wait until lunch. Could you please give us a couple of minutes?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
Jane’s composure and confidence returned slowly. She noticed how the First Lady seemed almost oblivious to the rest of the room. The businessmen resumed their conversations and the hum of the restaurant returned.
Elizabeth Dacre was a natural at putting people at their ease.
‘So, Jane, how is it you know a scoundrel like Dave?’ she asked.
Jane smiled and shot a glance at McIntyre. ‘I’ve heard Dave called a lot of things, some extremely nasty, but "scoundrel" is definitely a new one.’
The Post Editor came to the point. ‘Jane has been working on a case which I think would interest you greatly. It concerns an old friend of ours.’
‘Oh, really? Who’s that?’
‘Congressman Monroe.’
The smile disappeared from the First Lady’s face.
Jane took a sip from her glass. Something had obviously passed between Elizabeth and Dave. There was sarcasm in Dave’s voice but she knew she didn’t have time to find out why. She took a deep breath and started to tell Elizabeth her story. She explained how Charles West had been arrested in Cambridge for the rape of Hayley Bannerman and how they’d discovered the link to Jennifer Clarke’s death. DNA samples and the way West had interfered with a witness should have guaranteed he stayed on remand until trial.
Elizabeth interrupted, ‘How does this relate to Monroe?’
‘Congressman Monroe is his grandfather. Charles West is being touted by Monroe as a future Presidential candidate. I’m convinced Monroe put in a call to the Lord Chancellor’s Office in London, who in turn had a quiet word with the judge in the West case, and had his grandson released on bail. Within twenty-four hours of his release he was back here. I decided to take a short break after the death of my partner to find out more about West’s family.’
‘I saw a police funeral on CNN,’ the First Lady said.
‘Yes. We were on a different investigation. The death of a young man on a ship. We didn’t realise at the time there were a couple of undercover FBI agents on board.’
Elizabeth looked surprised. ‘The FBI killed the boy?’
‘No. They’d infiltrated a drug trafficking cartel. The drug runners killed the boy and shot my sergeant, Steve Cheney. The FBI agents managed to rescue me. Their names are Logan and Newman.’
Jane pressed on. ‘Yesterday I read a small article in the Washington Post about the deaths of two women. They’d both been given the same date rape drug that was used on the girls in England. I’m sure Monroe’s grandson is the killer. He has got progressively worse. When he was at Yale there were allegations of sexual assault. He first made the date rape drug at Yale. All the time his father and grandfather have been hiding and covering up what he did. I believe killing is the only thing that gives him a sense of power over his grandfather.
‘Then I discovered that history was repeating itself. I was asked to go to Logan’s father’s eightieth birthday party. His father gave me a present.’
Jane leaned down and removed the blue file from her case and placed it on the small table.
‘Logan’s father, Ed, had been a policeman back in Yale in1950, when Congressman Monroe was a student.’
Jane now had Elizabeth’s undivided attention.
‘Ed was part of a team investigating the murder and the rape of three girls. They connected the crimes to Monroe. They arrested him but before they could question him, in rolled his father, who was the Governor of Connecticut, and his uncle who was the Mayor of New Haven. All charges were dropped. Ed was ordered to “lose” the file.’
‘But he kept it,’ finished Elizabeth, desperately trying to take in the enormity of what Jane was telling her. Here was Charles Monroe, Chairman of the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, a killer pulling strings like the grandest of puppeteers to keep his own grandson one step ahead of the law.
‘I don’t understand why you’ve both brought this to me,’ the First Lady said, finally.
‘I couldn’t think of anyone in a better position to bring this to the President’s attention,’ Dave said.
Elizabeth looked at Dave and then back at Jane, her tone slightly changed.
‘I’m sorry, Jane, but I’m not a political wife. I have made it a personal policy not to interfere in politics.’
Elizabeth watched the fight slowly drain out of Jane. This English policewoman obviously felt passionately about the case. She had risked so much to bring it to her attention. But if Monroe was a killer, it was so long ago, how could anyone prove it? Where was the proof that the Congressman had pulled strings to get his grandson flown out of the United Kingdom? Those beautiful brown eyes have obviously seen so much pain, Elizabeth thought. Studying her face, she saw a smart lady, tough, too. She admired that.
Jane stared into her wine glass lost in her thoughts. Her case had gone all the way to the White House and she was still getting nowhere.
Elizabeth broke the silence, ‘You must have got to know Logan well if you ended up meeting his family.’
‘Yes,’ said Jane, breaking from her brooding. ‘We became good friends when we were waiting to be rescued in the Atlantic off Ireland.’
Elizabeth looked at Jane, her eyes wide open in amazement.
‘I was eventually discovered on the ship. The two FBI men, Logan and his partner Scott Newman, were nearly killed because they had saved my life. The drug gang tied them up and pushed them off the ship to drown. I jumped in to help them.’
‘You jumped off a ship?’ the First Lady exclaimed. McIntyre could feel another scoop coming.
‘It wasn’t a difficult choice to make. If I’d stayed on the ship, they would have killed me, Logan and Newman would have drowned.’
‘So how long did you spend in the water?’
‘Several hours. We were taken back to a Marine base at Shannon in the Irish Republic...’ Jane went quiet. She was lost in her thoughts again. It was all in vain. She needn’t have bothered. What was the point of carrying on? Most of this happened in the UK, why should she help? Logan, please come and hold me.
‘Jane?’ Dave said, but she didn’t answer.
Elizabeth raised her hand to stop him interrupting and leaned forward in her seat. In a low whisper she asked, ‘Was he good?’
Jane flushed and looked straight into the First Lady’s cool blue eyes. This woman was obviously extremely bright and very intuitive, she thought.
‘Breathtaking. Absolutely breathtaking,’ Jane whispered, forgetting she was speaking to the wife of the most powerful man in the world.
Elizabeth’s smile broadened as Jane continued conspiratorially, ‘You should try one. Secret Service, CIA, FBI, you’re surrounded by an alphabet soup of potential candidates.’
Elizabeth gave a mock shocked expression. The two women laughed.
‘Where do you think I should start?’
‘That’s easy,’ said Jane. ‘Sitting three tables to my left are a group of men who don’t particularly fit the political scene. Look over my right shoulder. The one with the mop of dark hair and opal green eyes.’
Both women turned to face him.
‘Very nice,’ the First Lady murmured. The man with green eyes, who looked up under their gaze and flashed them a devilish grin. They both instantly turned away, grinning and enjoying the joke.
‘How could you resist that?’ said Jane. ‘Do you know him?’
Elizabeth replied, ‘Oh yes, that’s…’
McIntyre interrupted. ‘Monroe!’ he said in a loud whisper.
‘It can’t be,’ said Jane. ‘He’s too young. I’ve seen a photo of him…’ She never finished her sentence.
‘No. Coming through the door!’