‘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 …
A second man was coming from the den. He too was dressed in overalls. He was a Hispanic, olive-skinned with a balding head and thick moustache. He saw Dublensky about the same instant that the crouching man did. Everyone froze, the Hispanic half-way through the door, the crouching man by the wall unit, and Dublensky in no-man’s-land, three steps into the room with nowhere to go. They were frozen into a tableau, excepting that everyone’s eyes were moving.
‘Get out of my house!’ Dublensky screamed, astonished at the aggression in his voice.
It seemed that the Hispanic didn’t need a second invitation. He moved quickly, accelerating from a standing start to a smooth and rapid walk in no seconds flat. Dublensky retreated slightly, suddenly alert to the risk of attack, but the Hispanic, though coming in the general direction of the door, kept wide, taking a loop out towards the wall as if to establish his non-aggressive intentions.
‘Get out of my house!’ Dublensky repeated, his attention caught by the crouching man, who had straightened up and was also beginning to move. He came forward at an almost leisurely pace, making no attempt to pretend he was heading for anything or anybody but Dublensky.
Dublensky felt a bolt of alarm, a fresh awareness of his vulnerability, and twisted his gaze back to the other man. Too late he saw that the Hispanic’s loop had brought him close up behind him, that, far from continuing through the door, he was reaching out towards Dublensky. Dublensky’s heart leapt against his chest, he heard himself cry out, and tried to duck away. The Hispanic’s fist came punching forward, Dublensky countered with his forearm, only to find that the move had been a feint. With sickening helplessness he felt the Hispanic’s free hand close in on his wrist, grip it brutally, and twist it up behind his back. The Hispanic kept twisting until Dublensky, yelping with pain, was forced to bend forward.
The least physical of men, Dublensky had time for a fleeting reflection on the stupidity of having instigated this encounter before everything was pushed from his mind by the arrival of a fist in his guts.
The top of his body jack-knifed forward and he sank slowly to his knees. His initial astonishment was eclipsed by ferocious and overwhelming panic as he choked for breath. His lungs were banded in steel, his stomach crushed in a vice, he thought he was going to die. So desperate was he for breath, so focused on the clawing of his lungs, that for an instant his brain failed to register the arrival of the next blow, which hit the back of his head with the force of a power hammer. The impact seemed to drive his skull forward into his head, he was aware of a thunderous roaring, an astonishing weightlessness, then finally, with massive relief, the gathering balm of unconsciousness.
When his brain climbed slowly back to life, it was with a dragging reluctance. He lay motionless, his eyes and ears closed to everything but the needs of his lungs. He reached for breath, pulled at the air like a swimmer saved from drowning, yet when he finally managed to catch a long draught of air, it was only to cough it out again, along with his lunch. It was a while before he could be certain of breathing with any confidence, though it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes. Then he lay still again, examining each of his senses in turn, muttering and whimpering with bewilderment and outrage, waiting for the worst of the pain and trauma to pass, half hoping he would slip back into unconsciousness again.
Somewhere outside, a bird sang. There was the hum of a car passing in the road. He opened his eyes and saw a scattering of papers, an overturned chair, an empty bookshelf and a vase of dried flowers balanced precariously on the edge of a table within an inch of falling.
No sounds came from inside the house. The intruders were long gone. He realized with a bitter sense of failure that he hadn’t even managed to get the registration number of the delivery truck.
It was another fifteen minutes before he felt strong enough to lift his head, which ached with a nauseating intensity. He had trouble keeping his balance, and it was only by leaning hard on a chair that he managed to climb unsteadily to his feet.
His first instinct, as in any crisis, was to contact Anne. Her office told him she was in case conference, and he had to wait while she was called out. The sound of her voice, tinged with concern, sent him into helpless inarticulate weeping, and it was some time before he was able to explain haltingly what had happened. Anne, who in her determination not to fall into feminine stereotypes had spent a lifetime controlling her emotional responses, couldn’t entirely suppress the quiver in her voice as she told him to sit tight.
While he waited for her, he sat in the lounge, staring at the sea of paper, shivering occasionally, murmuring and sighing to himself. When Anne arrived, he cried again and talked incoherently in a great stream of indignant rage. She gave him coffee and headache tablets, dried his tears and over his objections called the doctor and the police. The doctor wanted him straight down to the hospital for a skull X-ray, while the police, who seemed to think a bang on the head quite fortunate compared to some of the alternatives, were more interested in getting the suspects’ descriptions and an idea of what was missing.
Anne led the police on a tour of the house. The upstairs was untouched, but the den, like the lounge, was a terrible mess, with overturned table and strewn papers. There were also broken lamps and damaged furniture, almost as if the Hispanic had had a more ambitious burglary in mind.
Even before Anne with her customary thoroughness started to check each item off in her mind Dublensky knew that nothing of monetary value had been taken. The fancy carriage clock Anne had given him one birthday was still on the windowsill. His four-hundred-dollar camera sat in full view on a shelf. Some cash in the top drawer of his desk was untouched.
Rapidly losing interest, the police took down the brief descriptions Dublensky was able to give them and, putting the incident down to a failed burglary attempt, said they’d come back when the inventory was complete.
Dublensky was relieved when they were gone. His outpourings had drained him of speech, his head throbbed mercilessly. At the same time his mind had taken on a curious lucidity. Armed with more coffee and aspirin, and a pile of cookies which Anne insisted he eat for their energy value, he knelt on the den floor and began to sort through the scatterings of papers, books, journals and notes. The shock had worn off, to be replaced by a gathering anxiety, something akin to dread. He had a suspicion that, in one sense at least, the worst of the day was yet to come.
It took him almost an hour to sort the loose papers into rough batches and reorder the files, and another half hour before he was absolutely certain of what was missing. Then it was all he could do not to weep again.
His scientific notebooks going back to his student days were gone – all twelve of them – as well as a number of scientific papers, several diaries and his main correspondence file. A hurtful loss, but bearable.
More difficult to bear was the loss of the Aurora dossier, with its data on the sick workers and the safety procedures at the works. Although, when he really thought about it, it was not perhaps a complete disaster, since much of it duplicated
Burt’s work.
What was far, far worse than any of these was the loss of the slim unmarked file which he had hidden inside a folder of scientific papers at the back of a lower drawer of his desk. He kept on searching, but there was no doubt.
The secret file on the Silveron toxicology trials, with its ten irreplaceable photocopied pages, was gone.
Chapter 21
THEY SAT BY the window, separated from the oppressive midday heat by a chill wall of air-conditioning. The restaurant was Ethiopian, the drinks American, and the food somewhere in between. Daisy ate spiced lamb and couscous, and an unashamedly American salad served with Roquefort dressing. Paul Erlinger was stabbing at some charcoal-grilled chick-pea rissoles with yoghurt sauce.
‘Pity you couldn’t make it to the conference,’ he said between mouthfuls. ‘There were some really useful people there, some great new initiatives. What was it, you couldn’t get away in time?’
‘Something like that.’ Something like the fact that Catch was not funding this trip and that she’d got a bucket-shop ticket for a four-day trip sandwiched around a weekend.
‘Any other time and I could have shown you a bit more of the town,’ he said. ‘Washington has great food – Mexican, Cuban, Creole – you name it.’ He gave her a lopsided grin. ‘Food’s my weakness.’
‘I would never have guessed.’ She grinned at him. He was far from good-looking, with his round face, snub nose and small mouth, and he was decidedly heavy round the jaw and over the belt, but his looks were redeemed by a beaming affectionate smile and a conspicuous sincerity.
‘I could have shown you the Chesapeake,’ he said warmly. ‘Or the Appalachians. But like I told you, I’ve an appointment Sunday.’
‘Another time,’ Daisy said.
‘I’ll hold you to it.’ His eyes sent unmistakable signals.
‘That would be nice,’ she said, trying to match his affability without offering open encouragement.
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