Requiem (50 page)

‘You know a girl called Angela Kershaw, I believe.’

His hand hardly hesitated in its journey from the bowl to his mouth. He also made a pretty good job of hiding the glimmer of alarm that flashed into his eyes – a pretty good job but not a totally successful one, and Susan felt a tremor of satisfaction at the knowledge that she was on the right track.

He chewed on the nuts, a rapacious chomping. ‘Umm … should I?’

‘You and Tony had dinner with her in France.’

He made a show of trying to remember. ‘Oh? Did we? Sorry – one meets so many people.’

Did he think she was going to be taken in by this sort of hot air? He must take her for a total idiot. Her temper rose and ripped away from her with alarming speed. ‘Look,’ she hissed, ‘we can play games and pretend we don’t know this woman, or we can get on and save ourselves a lot of trouble.’

He stared at her, taken aback, then, recovering, rubbed the salt fastidiously from his fingers. ‘If you say so,’ he said cautiously. ‘Go on.’

‘This woman. She’s seeing Tony. I think she’s causing him problems.’

‘Ah. I see,’ he said unevenly. ‘I see.’ He was thinking hard, playing for time. ‘What sort of problems?’

‘I’m not certain. But Tony’s looking very worried.’

‘And you say you don’t know the – er, details?’ he asked, picking his way over the words as if they were glass.

‘No, but I thought you might.’

A glare of amazement. ‘Me? Why?’

‘You introduced them, didn’t you?’ she said.

‘No,’ he said indignantly. ‘I did not. Absolutely not. I only met her the once. I don’t know her at all!’

He sounded convincing. Doubt opened up in front of Susan like a crevasse. ‘But you know her well enough to remember her name?’ she asked accusingly.

He didn’t argue on that point. ‘I really have no contact with Miss – er, this lady. And I certainly don’t know what the – er, details are. Really. No idea at all.’

‘But you could find out,’ she persisted.

The surprise again. ‘I’m sorry?’

‘Your company must be finding things out all the time. It can’t be too difficult.’

‘Difficult?’

‘Finding things out. Using investigators, that sort of thing.’

He shook his head. ‘Mrs Driscoll, I’m afraid the sort of investigations we undertake aren’t anything like that. We commission reports on other companies, City personalities, financiers, that sort of thing. We don’t investigate – well,
personal
matters.’

‘No?’ She raised an eyebrow.

‘Besides, what could you hope to achieve? What would you expect to find out?’

‘What she’s up to, of course.’

‘Dear Mrs Driscoll – ’

Susan bridled at the dear. Little creep.

‘ – it would be most unwise to follow such a course on a matter like this. You see’ – he dropped his voice and adopted a tone of patient explanation – ‘it’s not something one could pursue without actually compromising the minister further – without exposing him to the most terrible dangers. Investigators – people like that – one could never entirely trust them. There could be leaks. The press might get to hear of it.’ He paused to emphasize the full horror of the idea. ‘The risks would be enormous.’

‘Risks?’ she said briskly, finding her confidence again. ‘But you don’t seem to understand. He’s already at risk. This woman’s putting enormous pressure on him, pressure he can’t take. She might already be planning to go to the press for all I know.’

Schenker’s mask of impassivity slipped a little and he chewed his lip in mild agitation. ‘So? What are you suggesting?’

‘She’s got to be dealt with.’

‘Dealt with?’

‘Dealt with,’ Susan repeated with more conviction than she felt. ‘Given what she wants. Told to disappear. Paid off. Whatever it is she’s after. And’ – she fastened him with the full power of her considerable gaze – ‘you’re the best person to do it.’

He didn’t reply, but she caught a hint of triumph in the staring black eyes. He liked the fact that she was having to grovel to him, she realized; he liked the fact that she’d had to come down to his level.

Schenker raised a beckoning finger and ordered another glass of champagne, and a Scotch and water for himself.

They didn’t speak again until the drinks were in front of them and the waiter gone. Schenker took a long sip of his whisky. She noticed that his hair had been blow-dried to give the impression of thickness, the better to hide the receding hairline that reached almost to the bald patch at the back.

‘Mrs Driscoll, even if I
could
find a means of helping,’ he began in the sort of hushed condescending tone that pastors reserve for their flocks, ‘I’m not sure it would be appropriate for me to get involved. In fact, entirely
in
appropriate. Behind your husband’s back …’ He sucked in his breath.

‘But why?’ she snapped.

‘Why? Because quite apart from anything else, you might have misread the situation. Suppose there’s no problem – ’

‘I haven’t misread the situation. Believe me.’

He spread a hand, conceding the point reluctantly. ‘But wouldn’t it be better – more suitable, I mean – if a family friend, the family solicitor – ’

‘No. You’re the only person who can do it. The only person I can trust.’ It was flattery, of course, but it was also the truth. If anyone could deal with the matter effectively, it was Schenker. Not only did he have the power and the resources to do whatever should be done, but just as importantly he was a naturally secretive man, someone who could be relied on to keep things quiet.

He seemed affected by her unexpected declaration of trust. ‘
Dear
Mrs Driscoll, I wish I could help but …’ A condescending smile, a regretful shrug.

She thought viciously: Don’t patronize
me,
you little worm! But with superhuman effort she suppressed the urge to say so. Was he being dense? Had he really not got the picture? Or was he just playing games? She decided to spell it out for him. She leant forward and rested a hand on his arm. He quivered slightly as if, given half a chance, he would have snatched his arm away, and it occurred to her that he didn’t like contact with women. Perhaps he was the other way inclined. She lightened her touch.

‘Tony could be finished by this,’ she said. ‘The strain could kill him. And if that doesn’t, then the scandal most certainly will – and if this woman’s as stupid as she sounds then there
will
be a scandal. Either way, he’ll be finished,’ she said, hammering the point home.
‘Finished.’
She withdrew her hand and added in elaborate parody: ‘And then,
dear
Mr Schenker, where would we be?’

His eyes dipped, his face closed down into an unreadable mask, he reached for his drink. Sipping it slowly, he looked at her over the rim of the glass, his eyes sly and pensive.

‘Under the circumstances …’ He hesitated as if giving the matter further thought, though she had the feeling that he had already made up his mind. ‘I will do what small amount I can to help …’ He looked up to catch her reaction, but she kept very still.

‘… But I can only act in a
private
capacity, as one friend helping another.’

Was she the friend he was putting himself out for? Or was it Tony? The intimacy didn’t bear thinking about.

‘… But I can promise nothing. Nothing. I’m sure you can appreciate that.’

Susan picked up her bag and got to her feet. ‘I’m sure you’ll do your best, Mr Schenker. I’m sure you always do.’

And in the instant that followed, a brief look of understanding passed between them.

When she walked out into the foyer, Susan wobbled slightly on her heels, though they weren’t especially high, and it was only when she was safely in a cab that she finally stopped shaking.

Dublensky tapped the corporation name into Anne’s word processor, pressed the exit key and gave the print command. The daisywheel churned into life and disgorged the customized letter. A few weeks ago he would have sent nothing but a CV and a short covering note, but now he gave every application the fully personalized treatment.

By starting late and spinning things out a bit, this took him until noon, when he had an early lunch of cold cuts and salad, and set off on his daily bicycle journey to the gym for a work-out. He had been making full use of the sports club recently; his membership lapsed in a month’s time and, due to economies on the home front, would not be renewed.

A fresh breeze was scudding over the lawns but once out of the shade the patches of sunlight were warm and sensuous on his back. It was the sort of day that would normally have made him outrageously glad to be alive, but in his present mood the coming of spring was dimmed by the reminder that time was passing and jobs were harder to find in the summer. He pedalled at a leisurely pace, saving his energies for the tyranny of the Nautilus equipment. At this time of day the street was quiet. A couple of pre-school kids were riding tricycles in their front yards, a housewife was hosing her car, a truck was making a delivery.

A car overtook Dublensky and, with a soft toot on the horn, drew in to the kerb. Dublensky recognized the green station-wagon of his neighbour, Joe Ankar, and cycled up to the driver’s window.

‘You got callers, John,’ Ankar announced, gesturing back in the general direction of the house. ‘A removal company. Arrived just a moment ago. Parked right outside.’

Dublensky automatically glanced over his shoulder. ‘Removal company? I don’t think so,’ he smiled. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

‘Well, they’re there all right. Just a small truck, so maybe they’re just delivering something. Anyways, they went right up the side of your house, like they were expected. Thought you must be in, otherwise I’d have checked it out.’

Dublensky couldn’t think what goods Anne could have ordered, not when they were cutting back. ‘Thanks, Joe.’ Waving, he turned his bicycle for home. As he breasted the final rise he spotted the truck, parked out front just as Joe Ankar had described.

It was a well-worn vehicle, with
ABC Ready Removals
emblazoned on the side in paintwork that had seen better days, and underneath in smaller letters
Dor-to-Dor Express
, with a toll-free phone number.

There was no sign of the driver. Dublensky parked his bike against the garage and walked round to the back of the house expecting to find the driver leaving whatever he was delivering in the yard and maybe wedging a delivery note inside the screen door. But the yard was empty, the door closed. He walked across the width of the house at the back and looked up the other side. Nothing. Returning to the back door, he opened the screen and tried the door handle.

The door swung open. Dublensky felt a sharp chill. Had he left it open? He went over his departure in his mind, reliving his progress through the house. But there was no doubt about it: he had definitely locked the door.

He tried to calm himself, tried to think the thing through. The smartest move would be to go to a neighbour’s and call the police, but he hesitated. Suppose he was mistaken? Suppose there was no prowler, suppose the delivery man was even now leaving the parcel or whatever it was at the next house?

Best not to be too hasty; he’d feel a fool calling the police if there was nothing wrong. Best to check things out first.

He hovered in the doorway. Fear held him back, but curiosity finally drove him forward and he stepped gingerly into the kitchen, listening hard. Nothing. Only the muffled sound of a dog barking somewhere up the street. He crept forward, aware of sharp excitement and a crazy disbelief at his own actions which seemed so daring as to belong to someone else altogether.

Measuring each step carefully, conscious of the appalling pounding of his heart, he reached the hallway door and peered through. The hallway was empty, silent.

Then it came: a slight sound, a rustling, like paper. Close by, within the house.
Someone.
Incensed, he felt a great leap of atavistic rage, quickly followed by the equally primitive response to get the hell out. The intruder could be armed. Knife or gun, what did it matter? You ended up dead all the same.

Yet for some inexplicable reason a paralysis gripped him and he held still. It seemed that the intruder was taking a break too because the rustling sounds ceased. Against all his better judgement, hardly believing he was capable of such lunacy, Dublensky inched forward into the hall, propelled by an appalling urge to see the intruder himself. The squeak of his soft shoes on the polished floor sounded unnaturally loud, like he was wearing suckers on his feet.

He crept towards the double doors to the lounge which were latched back against the wall and, squeezing himself hard against the wood, peered slowly round the frame.

It took him a moment to take it all in. The mess, the scattering of papers and books, the books standing up like islands in a sea of white. A dark-haired man dressed in overalls was crouching next to the wall units, searching the shelves. After a moment he sat back on his heels, a sheaf of papers balanced on his knee, and went through them methodically.

Mesmerized, Dublensky stood and watched. The papers on those shelves were Anne’s – lecture notes and case studies. What could this man possibly want with them? And why had he made such a mess to get at them?

The intruder flicked through the last of the pile then, as casually as if he were throwing a ball to a child, chucked them to one side so that they fanned out over the floor. He went to the next batch of papers and it dawned on Dublensky that this was no ordinary prowler. What kind of burglar would bother to look through batch after batch of valueless papers, and so systematically?

He didn’t pursue the realization further though he dimly perceived its significance. Instead he unbottled his anger, which was considerable, and stepped into the room.

Disconcertingly, the intruder, absorbed by his task, did not immediately see him. Dublensky drew breath to shout but the words died in his throat as he became aware of a flicker on the periphery of his vision, a movement that didn’t belong. He jerked his head round. Too late, he remembered Joe’s words.
You’ve got visitors … they went down the side …