The Innocents (31 page)

“Daddy, she’s not conscious,” she sobbed, throwing her arms around him. He stroked her hair.

“Take us in, poppet, let’s see what the doctors have to say. No use thinking the worst at this stage. How’s your mum?”

“
Ima
’s okay.” Rachel drew back and sniffed, and then turned back to Adam. She tucked herself under his arm as they waited for the lift and he squeezed her. “She’s been talking to the consultant. She knows more than I do. I’ve been outside calling people.” She wrinkled her nose and gestured back to the unwelcoming entrance to the hospital. They walked together down a long corridor of shiny buff linoleum, an exhibit of floral oil paintings displayed on the white walls. Rachel sniffed again and looked upward, wiping under each eye with a forefinger in the vain hope of clearing her smudged mascara.

“She found out about Ethan,” she continued when they were in the lift, pressed between two pushchairs and a man on crutches. “We tried our best but we couldn’t be with her all the time and so she found out about everything last night.
Ima
didn’t tell you because she said you had enough to deal with and so we’d look after Granny—and she seemed to be fine about it this morning when we left her. She was even joking that it didn’t matter because she never had much money to start with. But if it’s really all gone then she’s got nothing at all; he had everything, Daddy, and she’ll have to sell her house—and so she must have been so upset, and then Ashish called us—”

“Who’s Ashish?” Lawrence interrupted.

“You know, the Indian takeaway guy. That’s who found her. She called and ordered something and he went round to deliver it and she wasn’t answering the door, so he called the police because he’d just spoken to her so he was worried, and then when they let him in and they found her he called us. He came with her in the ambulance.”

“Thank God. And what did he say? How long did they think she’d been unconscious?”

“Not long because he said he was very quick going round. Not more than ten minutes, he was positive. Thank goodness Granny can’t cook.” Rachel smiled weakly.

“Ziva will be fine,” Adam said suddenly, with vehemence. He had no basis for saying so—but it seemed impossible that it could be otherwise. Ziva was unconquerable.

The lift doors opened, a nurse on reception smiled and pressed a button to unlock the security doors for them and Rachel led them down a waxed corridor to Ziva’s cubicle.

“
Ani ayefa
, Jaffale,” said Ziva, squeezing her daughter’s hand.

“I know,
Ima
. I know you’re tired.
Shluf, Ima
. We’re here if you want us.”

Ziva had been awake and able to talk, albeit slowly, for the last few hours, and although the consultant had kept her on oxygen the mask was frequently round her neck so that she might communicate something, carefully, to Jaffa.

Adam and Rachel had gone home, on Jaffa’s insistence, while Jaffa and Lawrence had stayed overnight at the Royal Free. Lawrence was looking white with exhaustion when they came back on Sunday morning but he met them in the corridor, smiling with relief.

“She’s going to be fine. She’s not very mobile at the moment but she’s absolutely clear, not remotely confused, thank God.”

“Will you get some sleep now, Daddy?” Rachel had asked.

“Later. Later. I’m going to run to the office in a bit.”

“You’ll be more use to everyone if you get some rest,” Rachel scolded, and Lawrence had laughed and kissed the top of her head.

“That’s exactly what your mother just said to me. I’ll be fine. Let’s not waste energy worrying about me just now.”

For most of the morning they had all been assembled around Ziva’s bed, sitting quietly as instructed. Every now and then a nurse would pop her head around the curtain and suggest, gently, that one or two of them might like to step outside and give the patient some air, but this was met with such ferocity from Jaffa that their efforts had become more and more halfhearted.

“She needs the family,” Jaffa would say stoutly, waving away the nurse like a fly. “I want to make sure you don’t kill her with that terrible
drek
you feed to these old people.”

“
Wo ist sie?
” Ziva mumbled. “
Wo ist meine eynikl?
”

“She’s here,
Ima
, Rachel’s here.” Jaffa pointed across the bed to where Rachel sat beside Adam, holding his hand, her gaze fixed anxiously on her grandmother.

“
Nein
, Jaffale, I’m not demented,” Ziva said irritably. Adam considered the irritability a good sign. It was a return to form and she was also speaking English, which was a relief. So far it had been German, Yiddish, and Hebrew, and sometimes a mixture of all three. Only Jaffa could understand all of them, although Rachel caught about half. “I can see that Rachel’s here.
Wo ist Ellie?
”

“We’ve been trying to get her, Granny. She’s not picking up her phone but I’m sure she’ll call back soon,” said Rachel. She looked crestfallen that she had not been the granddaughter Ziva wanted. She turned to Adam. “Will you go down and try her again? And has my uncle answered?”

“Pumpkin, I tried her twenty minutes ago. I think her phone’s off or something. Your dad emailed Boaz and it bounced back. Unless someone has a newer e-mail address for him I don’t know how we can reach him.”

“Please try her? Or I’ll ring her. Will you come down with me?”

“Of course but really, I’m sure if she’d got the message she’d have called by now.”

Rachel had stood up to leave, clutching her phone, but she spun round suddenly. “Ellie’s such a selfish bitch.”

Adam started, and he saw Ziva close her eyes with pained exhaustion.

“Rachel!” said Jaffa sharply.

“It’s true. Where the hell is she? We’ve been trying her since yesterday. She doesn’t care about her family at all, she’s probably holed up in some filthy hotel with some man who’s paying her to do God knows what. She’s such a slut, she’s disgusting.”

Adam stiffened with anger and then checked himself and glanced away.

Jaffa looked apoplectic. Rachel’s venom did not frighten her. “Rachel,
tafsiki
!” she hissed. “I will not have you raising your voice in this place. People are trying to heal. Go out and compose yourself.
Eze meshugas?
”

Rachel burst into tears and fumbled her way out through the plastic curtain that encircled them. Adam squeezed Jaffa’s shoulder and followed his wife.

“Rach, what is going on?” Adam asked when they were outside. They had left the hospital and were sitting on a bench by the memorial in the center of South End Green, next to a row of idling, belching London buses. It was a favorite place for a well-established coterie of Hampstead drinkers to enjoy early morning lagers, and a neat row of empty Foster’s cans was arranged at the foot of the monument.

Rachel shrugged, rolling a Coke can back and forth with the toe of her trainer.

“I just hate her.”

“You don’t hate her.”

She looked up. “I do sometimes, actually. Sometimes I really hate her. She’s so—It’s like she’s untouchable. Nothing affects her, anything could happen and she’s just—fine, she’s just perfect. Except she’s not. She does everything wrong and she’s selfish and still everyone thinks she’s perfect.”

Adam tried to ignore the sirens of warning that were wailing in his head. They hadn’t talked about her cousin in any detail for months; he didn’t want to say anything that might betray that he’d seen her. And yet there were odd echoes of a conversation he’d had with Ellie. He said carefully, “I don’t think her life is particularly perfect.”

Rachel shrugged again. She looked like a sulking teenager, her shoulders rounded in self-defense, her hair falling forward over her face. He felt sorry for her.

“I know, I know. I’m a terrible person because she’s had a hard life and I’m jealous of her and so what does that say about me, blah, blah, blah.”

“It says you’re human, Pumpkin, and that families are difficult sometimes and you’re all under stress right now. We’re all worried about Ziva.”

He rubbed her back, but she twisted away from him in annoyance.

“You sound like you’re reading from a textbook. I know families are difficult, I’m not an idiot.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s not just about right now. It’s always. Like, where is she this weekend? She hasn’t even bothered to call.”

She was meant to be in Paris with me, he thought, and shivered.

“I’m sure she—” he started but she cut him off.

“She hasn’t even bothered to call us and I’m here all the time, helping and worrying and it’s so unfair. I could stay with Ziva and sit with her all day every day—all year—and she would still ask for Ellie at the end of it. Everyone would, probably even my own parents. She’s beautiful and clever and troubled and needy and soooo charming, and I’m … whatever. She gets everything I want.”

A seagull landed in front of them and Adam watched as it rummaged greedily in an abandoned bag of cheese and onion crisps. The pigeon that had been hopping nervously closer to the foil packet, eyeing the crisps with curiosity, flapped suddenly and flew to the top of the monument. It sat at the pinnacle, looking down with its head cocked at the lost prize. Adam felt the breath catch in his throat.

“That’s not true,” he said.

Rachel turned to him, her eyes glistening and ringed with smudged mascara. “Yes, Adam,” she said. “It is.”

26

“I know I sound like Rachel but Lawrence, you’ve got to get some sleep.”

Lawrence looked up blearily; he had been nodding off, a coffee cup in one hand and the mouse in the other. “I know. I know, I know.”

“Will you go home now, for a bit?”

“I just want to check this through again before I go anywhere.”

Lawrence raised a copy of the draft claim form, waving it in slow motion like a white flag of surrender. Adam wasn’t fooled; his father-in-law was angrier than he’d ever seen him. There would be no surrender until Ethan Goodman, who had still not answered any of Lawrence’s communications, had been hauled out of hiding and made to account for himself. All traces of pity had disappeared. Lawrence was going to succeed with the injunction if it killed him.

“The barrister is going before the judge tomorrow and he had some guidance, some comments on the …” Lawrence trailed off.

“You’re actually slurring. Go home! We spent two nights here and then you spent last night at the Royal Free. It’s in good shape, it’s basically finished and I’m staying here in any case to work on the final amendments for Jonathan. So now I’m staging an intervention.”

“Hear, hear.” Tony had appeared in the doorway looking disheveled. His hair on one side stuck up as if he’d been clutching at it in frustration. Adam looked down. He would never have spoken to Lawrence with such familiarity if he’d known that one of the other partners was in earshot.

“I propose,” Tony said to Lawrence, “that we meet at seven tomorrow. It’s … almost midnight. Not too late. We might know more by then in any case, at least about what he’s been up to since Friday. We’ve got a call with the accountants at nine thirty and we’ll speak to the barrister again before he goes in. Adam, do you know what you’re doing? Clear on everything?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Crack on then, phone me anytime and after the call tomorrow you can nip home for a couple of hours. Jonathan will be here all night I imagine, so ask him if you’ve any questions.”

“Okay.”

On his way out Lawrence patted Adam’s shoulder. “Doing all right?”

Adam nodded.

“Good. I’m very proud, you know. You’ve been a real asset these last few days. Kept your head. Well done. However this turns out …” He trailed off and patted Adam once more before he went, leaving Adam to complete the thought. How might this turn out? It was absolutely impossible, at this stage, to be certain. The worst-case scenario meant financial decimation for Lawrence and his partners who would, Adam knew, use every penny of their own to repay what they could to their employees’ fund. Unless the money could be recovered, there were some people for whom this would turn out very, very badly indeed.

The fourth time Jasper had emailed Adam could not ignore him any longer. He had no time to stop, barely any time to think, but Jasper was frantically, touchingly worried about the Gilberts and Adam’s silence seemed to be confirming his worst fears. Adam reached for the phone.

“Adam! Where the hell have you been, mate, I’ve been bloody stalking you. I’m going out of my mind. Are you okay? You’re alive? You haven’t jumped off anything?”

“I’m sorry. Yes, I’m alive. You can’t imagine how things have been here.”

“If they’re anything like they are everywhere else then I can. Is it all true? He’s trying to flog it all off?”

“Yes.”

“So that bastard screwed GGP, right?”

“Not intentionally. But yes, effectively. And effectively,” Adam joked, joylessly.

“But surely it’s negligence, surely you can sue or something. What has Ethan said to Lozza? How can he even face him?”

“He can’t, Lawrence hasn’t been able to get hold of him, Ethan’s too spineless to speak to him. He’s holed up at home I think, with Brooke. He’s lost pretty much everything, I reckon.”