whitmore

Chapter 41

Whitmore

The address Whitmore sent was a private members club in Mayfair.

Not a restaurant. Not a hotel. A building with no sign outside, just a black door with a small brass handle and a man standing beside it who looked at them when they pulled up and nodded once like he was expecting them.

Which he was.

They went in.

Inside it was warm and dark and quiet. The kind of place that cost a lot of money to look like it cost nothing at all. Dark wood. Low lights. A few people at tables far enough apart that nobody could hear anybody else.

A woman in a dark jacket met them in the entrance hall.

“Mr. Whitmore is waiting,” she said. “This way please.”

She led them through the main room and down a short corridor and stopped outside a door at the end of it. She knocked once and opened it.

The room inside was small. A round table. Four chairs. A single lamp in the corner. A tray with water and glasses that nobody had touched.

Charles Whitmore was already sitting down.

Judith had not known what she expected. Something more threatening perhaps. Something that matched the size of what this man had done and allowed and covered up for fifteen years. But the person sitting across from them was just an old man. Thin. Well dressed. White hair. Hands folded on the table in front of him.

He looked at all three of them as they came in and sat down.

His eyes stopped on Judith last.

“You look like him,” he said.

She said nothing.

“Your father,” Whitmore said. “The same eyes.”

“I know,” she said flatly.

He nodded slowly and looked at Ethan. “Thank you for coming.”

“You said you had information,” Ethan said. “We are here for that. Nothing else.”

Whitmore looked at him for a moment. Then he reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and placed a small envelope on the table. He did not push it toward them. Just left it there between them.

“There were three people involved in the decision about Gerald Thompson,” he said. “Richard Blackwood was one. I was one.” He paused. “The third person was not someone whose name appeared in any of the documents you released today.”

“Who,” Dan said.

Whitmore looked at him. “A man named Peter Cassel. He is a senior official in the financial crimes division of the government. He was not just protecting the arrangement from the outside. He was part of it from the beginning. Gerald Thompson found his name in the records he accessed and that is what made him truly dangerous. Not just to Richard and to me. To Cassel.”

The room was very still.

“Cassel was the one who made the call,” Whitmore said. “Not Richard. Not me. Cassel decided that Gerald could not be allowed to reach the authorities because if Gerald walked into any government building with what he knew, Cassel’s entire career and freedom went with it.” He looked at the envelope on the table. “Everything I just told you is in there. Documents. Dates. A recording of a conversation between Cassel and Richard Blackwood four days before your father died.” He looked at Judith. “Your father’s name is on that recording. Cassel refers to him by name. What needs to happen to him. His words.”

Judith looked at the envelope.

Her hands were in her lap under the table. She pressed them together and kept her face still.

“Why are you giving us this,” Ethan said.

Whitmore looked at him. “Because Cassel is preparing to make me the only person responsible for everything. He has been doing it quietly for the past twenty four hours. Feeding information to the right people. Positioning himself as someone who uncovered the arrangement rather than someone who built it.” His voice was completely steady. “I am seventy one years old. I am not going to spend whatever time I have left carrying a crime that three people committed equally while one of them walks free.”

“So you are not offering us a deal,” Dan said slowly. “You are protecting yourself.”

“Yes,” Whitmore said without any hesitation. “I am protecting myself. I am not going to pretend otherwise.” He looked around the table. “But what I am giving you is real. And it is the piece you were missing today.”

Nobody spoke for a moment.

Ethan reached forward and picked up the envelope.

He did not open it. He just held it and looked at Whitmore.

“If this is real,” Ethan said. “All of it. Every document in here. You understand that giving this to us does not protect you from what is already in motion.”

“I understand that,” Whitmore said.

“The investigation is open,” Ethan said. “Robert Ashby’s statement is already with the police. Your name is already in it.”

“I know,” Whitmore said.

“Then what exactly do you think this buys you,” Dan said.

Whitmore looked at Dan for a long moment. “The truth,” he said simply. “It buys the truth coming out completely. All of it. Every person. Not just me.” He paused. “I have done things I cannot defend. I know that. But Peter Cassel ordered the death of an innocent man and he is currently in a government office putting on a clean suit and preparing to point at everyone else.” He looked at Judith. “Is that acceptable to you.”

Judith looked at him across the table.

She thought about her father. About the recording Whitmore said existed. Cassel’s voice saying her father’s name and what needed to happen to him.

“No,” she said quietly. “It is not acceptable.”

“Then take what is in that envelope,” Whitmore said. “Give it to your journalist and your lawyer and the police. Use all of it.” He sat back. “I will face what I have to face. But Cassel faces it too.”

Ethan put the envelope inside his jacket.

He stood up. Dan and Judith stood with him.

Whitmore stayed seated. He looked tired suddenly. Like a man who had been holding something up for a very long time and had just put it down.

“For what it is worth,” he said quietly. “I argued against what happened to your father. I want you to know that.”

Judith looked at him.

“It is not worth very much,” she said. “But I heard you.”

She turned and walked to the door.

Ethan and Dan followed.

The woman in the dark jacket was waiting in the corridor to show them out. They walked back through the quiet room and out through the black door into the cold Mayfair street.

Elena was standing beside the car. She looked at their faces.

“Well,” she said.

Ethan held up the envelope.

Elena looked at it. Then at him. “Is it real.”

“We are about to find out,” he said.

They got in the car.