Time to Kill (28 page)

‘You told him about us? Who we really are?'

‘No.'

‘He wasn't curious why you asked?'

Slater's uncertainty grew at her complete composure. What if she were right and Jack Mason had, in some inexplicable way, found them! Quite apart from his personal and moral failings, Jack Mason had been a far above average, even outstanding, intelligence officer, singled out for fast track promotion by the CIA. His unquestioned ability had actually been brought out at his trial, under attempted mitigating cross-examination of CIA executives. ‘Mills might have been but he didn't ask.'

‘You called him, the psychiatrist? Made an appointment?'

Slater shook his head. ‘I waited to talk to you first.'

‘Thinking I'd refuse? Make a drunken scene?'

‘Yes. And it's a woman, not a man. Hillary Nelson.' This was unreal.

Ann gestured towards the telephone. ‘Call her right now. It's still only four. There's no point in wasting time.'

Slater hesitated, caught by the further unreality that it was Ann who was patronizing him, as if he had some mental difficulty in understanding. He hadn't anticipated speaking to the psychiatrist herself when he made the call, surprised to be put through when he identified himself. In a slow southern accent Hillary Nelson told him Dr Mills had already warned he might call and had outlined the tragedy he and Ann had suffered. So much for professional confidentiality, Slater thought, before accepting that the man obviously thought Ann's need stemmed from David's death. He made a joint appointment for the following afternoon.

The unreality that evening stretched into the surreal. Ann talked matter-of-factly, as if there were no doubt of their discovery by Jack Mason, of their not being able to disclose who they were to the police and of their having to kill the man before he killed them, as if there were no doubt that was what Slater would do. It became increasingly difficult for Slater to contribute anything to such an already self-convinced and determined Ann. Her words were so absolute that, despite his disbelief, he found himself thinking back to his encounter with the ineffectual John Peebles and unnamed telephone respondents at the ancient CIA emergency numbers. Thinking, too, that they might still provide spider web safety nets to call upon and utilize. Ann's continued demeanour compounded his bewilderment; everything they discussed – or rather Ann's monologue – was conducted without any argument or anger or raised voices. Most surprising of all was that there was no demand – not even a hint – from Ann to have a drink.

Hillary Nelson was a neglectfully fat, middle-aged woman who hadn't bothered to colour the early whiteness of her hair or applied any make-up, and who wore the sort of hand-knitted, wrong-buttoned cardigan that reminded Slater of Mary Ellen Foley. The psychiatrist seated them side by side in front of her desk, lounged back behind it in her own vast chair and explained that she wouldn't take notes but would rely upon the tape recording she intended to take of every exchange between them.

‘Herb Mills told me you asked about confidentiality. Don't worry about it. Nothing we talk about will go beyond these four walls. Like he told you, I'm bound by the same professional rules.'

Slater was aware of the sharp look from Ann, whom he hadn't told of their doctor's contact with the psychiatrist, in advance of the meeting. He didn't respond to it. Instead he said, ‘To understand what this is all about, there are things you've got to be told that you won't expect.'

‘So tell me,' invited the woman.

Daniel Slater began imagining that there was a lot to disclose and that it would take a long time, increasingly aware as he talked that it really wasn't after all a convoluted or confusing story to recount. Throughout the psychiatrist did not once interrupt or show any facial or physical reaction, head mostly on an expansive chest as if she were disinterested, dozing even. She still didn't speak when Slater finished and at last Ann said, ‘Daniel thinks I imagined it all but I've not … I didn't. It was definitely Jack.'

At last Hillary Nelson stirred, holding up a halting hand. ‘I can very easily understand your concern about confidentiality. You told Herb Mills all this?'

‘No,' said Slater. Abruptly he thought that the woman might think the whole thing – of his being a defecting Russian and Mason, Ann's former husband, a CIA traitor – a total fantasy, so he hurriedly recited trial dates and full names and said, ‘It'll all be on archival websites. Photographs, too.'

The psychiatrist smiled. ‘And I'll access them. But I did – do – believe you. It would be a hell of a story to make up.'

‘And I'm not making up seeing Jack,' chipped in Ann, at once.

‘I also accept the strain that's been put upon you, living as you have done for all these years, learning of Jack Mason's release and then losing David the way you did,' said Hillary Nelson, not responding to Ann's interjection. ‘It's right, useful, for me to have seen you together like this. But from here on I need to see you separately. You first, Ann …'To Slater she said, ‘You want to come back and see me tomorrow, maybe? Or wait outside until I'm through talking to Ann?'

‘We don't have time to stretch this out!' insisted Ann, talking more to her husband than to the other woman.

‘I'll wait,' said Slater.

Jack Mason decided that proposing marriage to Beverley Littlejohn had been an inspiration of genius and that investing $8,000 the day after the proposal on an engagement ring put the cherry on the cupcake; she'd even, appropriately, chosen a cherry red ruby for the centrepiece of her diamond-surrounded ring.

The day after the ring purchase, Mason set out to make the final, protective alibi moves before flying back east. Beverley accepted without question that he couldn't estimate how long it would take him to set up things in Los Angeles and San Diego before his Washington flight, asking only that he keep in touch from wherever he was, with a telephone number if he were going to be there for more than twenty-four hours, and get back as soon as he could. She asked if she could start planning the wedding and Mason said of course she could, but that she shouldn't tell anyone what his background was and risk driving away friends and family. Beverley insisted none of her friends or family – which came down to a cousin – would react against him and Mason, savouring the irony, told her that despite the job she did and the training she'd undergone to qualify, she didn't know people at all.

Mason called Patrick Bell from Beverley's apartment to announce he was abandoning the compensation claim, calculating that the delayed internal penitentiary enquiry and whatever penalty was imposed upon Frank Howitt wouldn't be completed in the time left before Peter Chambers' release, reflecting as he talked to the lawyer that he was under a self-imposed time limit if he were to hit Slater and Ann before his scheduled reunion with the bank fraudster, which was the timing he determined upon.

‘You could have saved us all a lot of time, effort and expense taking my advice in the first place!' complained Bell.

‘You're being paid for your time and effort, aren't you?' retorted Mason. ‘I still expect to get the out-of-court settlement they originally offered.' It could actually go a long way towards covering the cost of the engagement ring, he thought, idly.

‘Let's not get tetchy,' said the lawyer.

‘I'm not getting tetchy. How long do you think it'll take?'

‘I don't know. Two or three weeks maybe. I'll need your written authority, of course. I can't do anything until I get that.'

‘I'll send it today, recorded delivery.' Bell's written acceptance response would provide further dated documentary evidence of his Californian domicile.

‘You've definitely decided to stay out there, then?' said Bell.

‘It's great.'

‘You want everything sent to the box number?'

‘The box number. I still don't have a permanent place here.'

Slater wrote and recorded his authorization to abandon the claim to the lawyer – saving the letter on his hard disc – and recorded its delivery from the main San Francisco post office. From its long-distance public telephone facility he called the Lexington Park agency from which he'd rented the fishing cottage on Chesapeake Bay and was remembered the moment he used the Adam Peterson name. That cottage wasn't available, apologized the man, but there was another practically identical one about two miles away. Mason made the viewing appointment and assured the man he was as pleased as the letting manager to be doing business again so soon. He bought the direct, one-way flight ticket to Washington DC in the name of Adam Peterson from the already chosen American Express office on Jackson Street and waited until he crossed the bridge back to Oakland to book separate flights the following day to Los Angeles and San Diego in the name of Jack Mason at another already selected travel agency in Oakland. When he got back to Beverley's apartment, in good time for her homecoming ritual, he left the Los Angeles and San Diego air tickets on the bedroom bureau.

As they sipped their balcony drinks Mason said, ‘I made the reservations today.'

‘I saw the tickets in the bedroom.'

‘And for tonight, for a farewell dinner.'

‘Where?'

‘The Captain's Cabin at Trader Vic's.'

‘It's not farewell, though, is it?'

‘You know it's not.'

‘I don't know what I'd do without you, not now,' said Beverley.

‘You're never going to have to find out.' It was going to be good, a relief, to get away. It was necessary – sensible – to have taken the alibi precautions, but he hoped he didn't have to use them.

‘How did it go?' demanded Slater, looking up as the psychiatrist escorted Ann from her office.

Hillary Nelson smiled at Slater's eagerness. ‘Confidentiality extends to husband and wife.'

‘How do we go forward?' asked Slater.

‘Easy,' said the woman. ‘Now it's your turn to come into the office.'

Twenty-Two

‘J
ack Mason betrayed his country?' opened the psychiatrist. ‘Yes,' said Slater.

‘As you did yours?'

‘Yes.' This was quite different from what Slater had expected; but then he hadn't known what to expect.

‘Do you feel any guilt about that?'

‘No.'

‘Did you ever?'

‘Not that I remember.'

‘You didn't feel any allegiance to your country? Swear an oath of loyalty?'

‘I swore an oath of loyalty when I was admitted to the KGB. It was routine. I don't think anyone took it seriously.'

‘What about the family you left in Russia?'

‘There wasn't any family.'

‘None at all?'

‘None of whom I was aware.' Slater couldn't see the point of the questioning, how this was helping Ann, although he accepted that he had to co-operate in every way demanded of him.

‘Tell me how it happened, how you came to defect, why you defected, how difficult it was for you to adjust to a permanent life in America. Don't try to get anything in order. Just talk as it comes into your head.'

Slater hesitated, despite what the woman said. ‘Ann and I were involved, as she's probably told you. I got my recall instructions from Moscow … no one is allowed to remain on overseas station too long – I'd been in Washington for almost five years, which was actually longer than normal. I had nothing to go back for. Or to. No family, as I've just told you. I didn't want to leave Ann. I told Ann who I was … not Jack's CIA colleague, which she thought I was …'

‘That was a hell of a risk, wasn't it! You'd fallen in love with Ann, hoped she'd fallen in love with you, and out of the blue you tell her that everything she believed about you was a lie?'

‘She'd told me how things were between her and Jack. I didn't just come out with everything as bluntly as that, out of the blue as you say.'

‘How did you come out with it?'

Slater hesitated again, genuinely having to try to remember. ‘I think I asked her if she would divorce Jack.'

‘What did she say to that?'

‘That she wanted to. But that she was frightened of what he might do to her if she said it outright.'

‘Still deceiving her?'

‘I suppose I was. It didn't seem like that.'

‘Then what did she say?'

‘That she needed to think about it.'

‘She'd told you how things were between her and Jack but she still needed to think about it when you asked her to leave him and marry you?'

‘I'm not sure I said I wanted to marry her, not the first time.'

‘Go on.'

‘When we talked about it the next time, that's when I told her I wanted to marry her.'

‘What did she say then?'

‘That she still wanted to think about it.'

‘Didn't that worry you … make you think that she might not love you after all and would go to the authorities instead, turn you in?'

‘I don't think I'd told her who I really was at that time. I don't remember ever thinking she'd turn me in.'

‘What did you think?'

‘Ann had had a pretty shitty life. She'd thought marrying Jack was her best chance to make things better, which it hadn't turned out to be. I thought she was frightened of making the decision – that it might turn out bad again.'

‘Go on,' repeated the woman.

Slater wasn't sure how to. Uncertainly he said, ‘One night she was beaten up. She said Jack did it and that she didn't want to be with him any more. That she would leave him for me.'

‘That was when you told her who you really were? What Jack was, as well as being a wife beater?'

‘I think so, yes.'

‘How did she react?'

Slater sniggered an uneasy laugh. ‘I think she cried a lot more.'