by Bourne, Sam
She looked over at Benson, his eyes on the sidewalk, his fingers on the door handle as the car slowed down, a parachutist by the hatch waiting for the right moment to jump. She noticed that in his other hand Dan held his house key between thumb and forefinger, ready to be deployed. He was thinking ahead, avoiding a protracted moment of fumbling while the cameras clicked away at more than a dozen frames per second. (It struck Natasha that the true professional, used to this situation, would have had someone already positioned inside the apartment building, waiting on the other side of the door, ready to open it and usher them in.)
Natasha looked at Dan. Her eyes conveyed that she was expecting him to handle this, to be the expert. This is your trade. You’re meant to know what to do.
The taxi was slow enough that someone in the cluster of reporters and photographers and camera operators spotted Natasha behind the car window and in less than a second they all had: they’d wheeled round and their lenses were already trained on the kerbside passenger door. To Natasha, they looked like a single, panting animal, with two dozen eyes – all staring towards her.
‘We’ll just get out calmly and walk towards the front door as calmly and normally as we can. As if we’re just getting out of a cab and calmly heading home. And sombre, obviously. No smiles. Other than that, nice and easy. Calm.’
Natasha thought: anyone who can’t stop talking about being calm is almost certainly panicking.
Benson handed the driver a twenty, and Natasha could feel the beast on the other side of the glass, its multiple eyes trained on her as she remained inside that cramped space. It was waiting, hungry – somehow it seemed reckless to make the beast wait. She had a sense that even a second’s delay would be seen as weakness, would make its hackles rise, make it likelier to pounce. Dan opened the door, and began to step out.
The first thing that hit her was the din. The cameras clicking, the jostling and, above all, the shouting. So much louder when it was right in your face, so much louder than it looked on TV. She had witnessed a so-called goat-fuck a few times, on the steps of various courtrooms, of course, and, just a couple of weeks ago, outside the US Capitol following the hearings. But to be at the centre of it in the wild, to be on the receiving end of it on a residential street: that was something else entirely.
The shouting did not let up. Mostly it was a loud chorus of ‘Natasha!’ as if every photographer in there was a long-lost friend, urging her to look their way, punctuated by the occasional, ‘Hey, dude, out of my shot!’ or, more directly, ‘Out of my fucking way!’ Someone must have made the mistake of treading on a foot or, worse, jogging the elbow of a camera-holding arm, because Natasha heard two men in unison brand a third a ‘cunt’.
All of this occurred in a single second, rising in volume the instant Natasha put a single foot on the sidewalk. She heard it before she saw any of it, from the collective click of two dozen shutters, illuminated by the sudden concentration of lights aimed squarely at her.
Benson put a hand on her elbow and guided her towards the entrance. The press pack formed a gauntlet, naturally dividing themselves into an impromptu honour guard, on both sides of what was now a path from the kerb.
Natasha was struck by the self-policing nature of it, as if there were an invisible line that no one dared cross. Some collective instinct within the beast led to the clearing of a path along which the quarry – Natasha – was allowed to proceed. No one jumped in front of her or Benson; no one obstructed their route to the door.
But the path did narrow, as reporters on both sides of it leaned in, shoving their microphones directly under Natasha’s face. She was looking down, which she knew was a mistake: it looked too guilty. Or maybe it would come across as respectfully sombre. Who the hell knew?
Benson still had his hand on her elbow, trying to steer her through. The questions all came at once, each one tangling with the other until they were all but indecipherable. She picked out: ‘What happened, Natasha?’ ‘Did you kill him?’ And, though she wouldn’t swear to it, ‘Did you use excessive force?’
The path in front had narrowed to a small opening. The Red Sea was closing. The two sides had converged. Not yet at the door, she would have to push through. The gap was so narrow, she and Benson were now moving in single file, with him in front. Her back felt dangerously exposed. She imagined a hand on it, giving her a shove, bringing her to the floor. She had a flash memory of that man standing in the doorway, his eyes eager.
She could hear Dan saying, ‘Excuse me’ and ‘Come on, guys, let us pass.’
Finally, they were at the door. The questions were still coming, bellowed from behind. The photographers’ chorus of ‘Natasha! Natasha!’ did not let up.
Natasha could see that Benson had kept his key gripped between his thumb and forefinger, held up and ahead of him, as if it would slice the obstacles in their way, like the blade of an ice-breaker. And then, a moment or two later, they were inside.
The noise faded a bit, but Natasha could still hear them taking pictures. The white brightness of the TV lights was still visible through the glass of the entrance lobby. But she felt like she had reached safe harbour, all the same.
Dan ignored the elevator and went to a side door, which led to a staircase. Two flights and they were in his apartment. Wood floors, a couple of tastefully framed prints, some books. Soulless and empty, it screamed single-in-Washington. Benson closed the curtains, a precaution, he explained later, against the prying, airborne eye of a drone camera.
He then fell into a sofa. ‘Jesus Christ,’ he said, his palm against his forehead. He looked exhausted from the ordeal outside. Natasha, however, stood still, all but frozen.
‘Come on, Natasha. Sit down.’
She ignored his request, and looked instead at her phone. She wasn’t going to check the news or social media. Instead, she was going to send a message to someone she had never met, who she knew of only by reputation. But everything that had just happened convinced her she now had no choice. She needed Maggie Costello.
Chapter 9
Washington, DC
As Maggie waited by the elevators in the underground car park, a small wheelie suitcase at her side, she reflected that this was a double first. Never before had any politician she worked for – she would never use the word ‘client’ – asked her to bring over a pair of her own jeans, perhaps a skirt, a couple of tops and a supply of fresh underwear. And never before had she been drafted in by a possible presidential candidate who was simultaneously a rape victim and murder suspect, with just over a week to clear her name before it would be too late to enter the race at all: the filing deadline to get on the ballot paper was only eight days away.
As she waited for the elevator to reach level minus three, Maggie took another look at the text that had arrived an hour earlier.
My name is Natasha Winthrop. I know of your work and have admired it from afar. You have a reputation for being able to solve any and every crisis and for being a fierce defender of what’s right. That’s precisely what I need at this moment. Will you help me?
Maggie had given a non-committal answer, suggesting that they meet. Winthrop had replied with a message that made Maggie smile.
That would be ideal. The trouble is, I’m at the home of a colleague who I don’t *entirely* trust, unable to go back to my own house and wearing clothes I’d dearly like to burn. So, and I know it’s a bit early to be asking this, but is there any chance you could bring me something to wear? And without putting a plant on the balcony, as it were, I’m afraid I’m going to have to give you rather convoluted instructions for how we might see each other.
Maggie had read the message twice, unsure if she believed it. The poise, the dry humour, the casual Watergate reference: there weren’t many in DC who talked like that, not in a town where lean efficiency was prized above elan. But hadn’t this woman just been through a life-changing trauma? Maggie wondered if she was b
eing tricked.
Still, she had gone to the underground car park on M Street all the same, following the instructions that arrived in a subsequent text. She had punched the numbers into the keypad by one door, and then did the same at the next. And now here she was, staring at the sign above the elevator door, willing it to come soon. She had bad memories of underground car parks.
She glanced at her phone one more time, at the search page generated by typing in the words ‘Natasha Winthrop’. There were dozens of items prompted by Winthrop’s breakout moment during and after the hearings: mini-profiles, celebrity tweets (including several women declaring a ‘girl crush’ on ‘the fierce attorney who just ripped into the administration’), analyses, memes, the works. But before that, surprisingly little.
Winthrop had been quoted in news accounts of some of the court cases she had fought, Guantanamo and the like, and the statements attributed to her were sharp and pointed – ‘An injustice is still an injustice, even when it takes place so far away we can’t see it’ – but none revealed anything much about her. There was a small piece in Washingtonian, which noted that Winthrop had been spotted stepping out with the new head of the Kennedy Center before expressing a sneaking admiration for the lawyer’s heels. Otherwise, the best source was a story that had appeared in the style section of the Washington Post, in their gossipy ‘One to Watch’ series.
Natasha Winthrop is making waves, and no, that’s not a reference to her skill with a jib and a boom (though Chesapeake types agree she is quite the sailor). Legal eagles say she’s rising fast, the former Supreme Court clerk tipped for a place on that bench herself one day, and perhaps sooner rather than later. With forty still on the distant horizon, the Boston Brahmin has brought a touch of old line class to DC, the Winthrops being one of that vanishingly rare species, a true, straight-off-the-Mayflower family whose blood runs true blue. WASPier than a buzzing hornet, the Oxford-educated former Rhodes Scholar is smart, well-bred and—dare we say it?—gorgeous. Still single, she’s been linked to some of the capital’s most eligible bachelors, but so far this is one WASP who refuses to be caught . . .
Maggie recalled her own appearance in the ‘One to Watch’ slot, back when she worked for the president who, as Tom Harrison had reminded her, brought her to DC in the first place. She too had been hailed for her sudden appearance close to the top of the Washington tree, with a lip-licking reference to her looks. Something about ‘long, auburn hair, the color of a Dublin autumn’ and, predictably, the mandatory mention of ‘Irish eyes’. Still, the one impression that emerged from this skimmiest of skim searches was that Winthrop had not sought media attention. What Maggie had pulled up was the bare minimum of coverage for someone in Winthrop’s position, given her caseload and the issues it touched on. It was about the same volume Maggie herself had generated, which was as little as humanly possible.
The elevator had arrived, taking Maggie from the bowels of this corporate building up to the third-floor offices of Gonzales Associates. The firm was well-known to Maggie, as it was to every viewer of MSNBC and reader of The Nation: it was the go-to law firm for progressive causes, regularly teaming up with the American Civil Liberties Union to represent some hopeless and apparently lost cause. The original Gonzales was long dead now, but he had set the tone from the start, defending the Black Panthers in a string of civil disobedience and direct action cases. Recently the Gonzales roster had included a class action lawsuit on behalf of the entire population of Puerto Rico, suing the United States federal government for both neglect and racist discrimination. The administration’s failure to respond adequately to the last natural disaster to pummel the island was at the centre of the case.
The doors opened and Maggie was confronted immediately by a familiar face: Natasha Winthrop waiting for her in the lobby.
Winthrop extended a hand and smiled widely. ‘Really good of you to have come, Maggie. I’ve heard so much about you.’ Maggie took her hand and smiled back.
Winthrop looked like her photographs – tall, slim, her dark hair closely cropped and almost boyish – but instantly Maggie saw something else that usually eluded the camera lens. It was the glow of her eyes. They were an exquisite green, positively sparkling with intelligence. Even in that first greeting, they hinted at a comic knowingness, as if fully cognisant of the absurdity of this and every other situation. It seemed such an odd fit for a woman who had just been involved in a double act of deadly violence, both as victim and perpetrator.
Maggie’s first thought was, How on earth does this woman look this good, after everything she’s been through?
‘Come on in,’ Winthrop said, using her swipe card to let herself through the office door, where the reception desk was unattended. They walked past an open-plan area that was also empty, past several glass-doored offices, two of which were occupied, even at this late hour. In one of them a man looked up as the two women passed, but he seemed immersed in his work, white AirPods clamped into his ears, so Maggie was unsure if he’d even registered what he’d seen.
Eventually they were at a door where the name ‘Natasha Winthrop’ was etched into the glass – small and discreet rather than showy. They went in, Natasha gesturing for Maggie to take the two-seater sofa, while she flopped into a matching chair. Together the two pieces of furniture formed an L-shape, so that they were only a foot or two apart.
‘Maggie, I cannot tell you what a relief it is that you’re here. The actual Maggie Costello, for heaven’s sake. I feel like the cavalry’s arrived.’
‘Well, I’m only glad—’
‘As soon as this nightmare began, I knew I’d need your help. But I just assumed you’d be abroad – in Jerusalem or Damascus or Tehran or heaven knows where, putting the world to rights, saving our collective skin. So when I sent up that little emergency flare, I had no expectation whatsoever you’d be able to answer it. But here you are. I am beyond grateful.’
Just as the newspaper photographs had failed to do justice to her eyes, so the brief, viral video clips had failed to capture Natasha Winthrop’s voice and, specifically, her accent. In all her years living in DC, Maggie was not sure she had heard anything like it. The cadences were familiar enough, but only when coming out of the mouth of upper-class English folk. (A type Maggie had encountered often enough during her first job, with an NGO in Africa: the aid world was crawling with posh Brits.) But an American who talked this way, outside of Katherine Hepburn in The Philadelphia Story? Maggie suspected Natasha Winthrop was the very first.
‘I should warn you. I’m not normally one of those Washington types who spends an hour talking about themselves and then says how interesting it was to meet you.’
Maggie smiled in recognition.
‘But this is not a normal situation.’
‘No.’
‘I’m aware that I’m not functioning at full capacity. There should probably be a health warning after – I’m not sure what to call it – an experience like this: “Do not drive or operate heavy machinery.” Or make major decisions.’
‘You should take some time.’
‘Of course I should.’ Natasha looked down, her head at an angle, as if fascinated by a spot on the ground to the left of her feet. She scratched the hair by her temple. ‘The trouble is, there is no time.’ There was a beat or two of silence. ‘So I am going to have to break my usual habit and be one of those appalling Washington people, I’m afraid.’
‘Not at all. You should tell me what’s going on.’
Natasha cleared her throat, both to punctuate the moment but also, it seemed to Maggie, to gird herself and to compartmentalize – to put her recent ‘experience’ to one side. Maggie recognized that move because she had made it herself often.
‘To put it simply,’ Natasha began, ‘your reputation is as the number one solver of political problems – crises, even – in this city. Well, that’s what I need, Maggie. You see, I thought I had a legal pro
blem, but I now understand, as of this evening, that I have a political problem.’
‘Political? But you’re not a politician.’
Winthrop sat a few inches back in her chair, and gave Maggie a dazzling smile. Of admiration, mainly. They both knew Maggie was playing naive, and they both knew Maggie was angling to hear her answer.
‘This is political in the following ways. One, DC Police and I—’
‘Have history.’
‘Exactly. So whether that makes them want to treat me better or worse than a regular person, I’m not yet sure. But it will colour their response in some way or other.’
‘Has it already? Coloured their response, I mean?’
‘We’ll get to that. Second, there has been some obviously absurd speculation about me as a presidential candidate. It doesn’t matter whether or not I would even consider such a thing—’
‘Politician’s answer.’
‘“I have no plans at this time,”’ she said, adopting the cheesy rhythms of a generic US candidate. They both smiled. ‘But genuinely, it’s ridiculous. It’s the last thing I’d want to do. Dealing with this level of attention, all the time? Complete nightmare. I’m a lawyer: I have my cases, I have my clients. I want to be able to do my work for them, in peace.’
‘I can feel a “but” coming.’
‘But what I’ve realized is that it’s entirely irrelevant whether I would even dream of running. What matters is—’
‘People in your party think you might.’
‘Yes indeed.’
‘And that will colour their responses.’
‘Precisely. It already has.’
‘Which is why the chairman of the House intelligence committee sent his top operative to act as your minder.’
