If only one could establish a little order before death.
She had tried. Her will was made, carefully apportioned between her children and the Foundation for the Maison de l’Europe de l’Est. Her papers were sorted and sifted. And now Jan. It had been right to set the record straight with him.
She had been spurred to Prague, not only by her inner voices, but by a concatenation of events that had made her both suspicious and fearful. First there had been Ted’s abrupt appearance at her Paris home. He was in a rage. It was only the second time she had seen the mask slip and it was not a welcome sight. His tone had been openly bullying. He had sworn at that vixen of an Ariane she had introduced him to, told her that she was charging him far too much for a little job he had given her, told her she had better take the woman in hand. Or else, he was prepared at long last to do the dirty.
The open threat had jarred her slumbering conscience in a way that the gilded menace had never done. However unwilling she was, however difficult, it was time to shake off the hold Ted Knight had on her.
Stephen’s announcement the following day that Ariane had vanished had made her aware of an unsuspected link, though she had no clear sense what it might be. The last person in the world she wanted inadvertently to hurt was Stephen. Whatever his self-estimate, Stephen was good. He had always been a staunch, a generous friend. And a man of considerable scientific talent, to boot. She cursed herself for having helped to bring Ariane to France.
And now? Now she was still not certain she had acted in time.
Simone took a deep shuddering breath. Her hand, she noticed, was trembling. With an effort which seemed to defy gravity itself, she rose to her feet and walking at a pace she would never have allowed anyone to see, she made her way step by weary step towards the telephone.
The coffee was black and bitter and scalded his throat.
Barely containing a curse, Ted Knight set the cup back on its saucer and drummed his fingers against the table. With the vehemence of a large trapped animal hunting out modes of escape, his eyes flitted from corner to corner of the gilded café.
It was all that bitch of an Ariane’s fault. She might be good in bed - even though she didn’t mean a minute of it - but as for anything else… Worthless! Oh yes, she had got the material adroitly enough. He could swear Caldwell suspected nothing. But then, she wouldn’t hand it over for the agreed fee. Had sniffed its importance. Pure extortion what she had asked of him, a series of instalments and payment points as complicated as a Hollywood contract. Fifteen grand here and fifteen grand as soon as he had a nibble and then more and more to be paid in advance into an American account, all details provided. And now the stupid bitch had got herself into Simone’s clutches and the old sphinx wasn’t playing. Was threatening him! But she wouldn’t bring in the law. No. That wasn’t her style. Unless she had suffered a sea change.
Out of date, indeed! What did the old crow know about the world.
Ted Knight clenched his fist and slammed it against the table so that cup and saucer and spoon jumped and neighbours turned.
No. He didn’t like being thwarted like this. Not one little bit. Nor did he like being some thirty grand out of pocket. His own pocket! Though he wouldn’t so much mind sinking it if the bankroll at the end came through. A pretty hefty bankroll it was promising to be too.
So he would somehow have to draw on his insurance policy. He would have preferred not. But that was the way the wind was blowing. The question was how to go about it. He needed an inspiration. It would do no good to implicate himself. As things stood, there was no proof of anything.
With a surge of impatience, he flung a couple of wrinkled bills on the table and strode out into the Square. Wind gusted at his hat. He jammed it more firmly on his head, noticed the box of pastries he was still carrying and tossed it towards an old geyser who was leaning against a wall and looking hungry.
Where to now? He had better check in at the hotel and just see whether any better news was coming in on the scroll. One never knew. Simone might have been bluffing. Yes. Or that hungry Ms Ariane Mikhailova might have flown the coop. She had enough cunning wiles to wing her way round most, that one, if the rewards were good enough.
Ted Knight thrust his way north through the busy square. As he crossed over Havelska, he heard his name called and turned to see Gustav Hauser, one of the conference delegates. He walked with the man for a stretch, fobbed him off with the promise of a cocktail hour meeting, then turned in the opposite direction. He wasn’t interested in that particular hunt now. And Hauser was old hat. It was always the one’s you didn’t want, who chased you. That was one of the troubles with this town, particularly the historic bit. You bumped into people at every turn. Not like LA, where you could disappear for weeks.
He turned the corner and was suddenly aware of another familiar figure, this time in front of him. Neat quick steps, a mushroom of a hat. Well, well, well. So little Miss Tess hadn’t hopped and skipped over the bridge and carried her basket to the castle. He didn’t think she was headed that way now either. Maybe she was on her way back to the hotel. Maybe not. A little sleuthing wouldn’t go amiss.
He slowed down, matched his pace to hers, keeping well behind, but with her hat always in view amidst the flurry of passers-by. She was walking quickly, not a tourist’s pace, even an ardent one’s. No, she had a destination and it wasn’t the hotel. She had skirted that turn, was making her way into a cramped street all but devoid of people. He slowed his steps, didn’t want the crunch of feet on snow to alert her to his presence. Too late. She turned to look behind her with a furtive expression. He leapt into the recess of a doorway and made himself small, held his breath for a moment. When he peered out again, she had vanished.
Briskly, he walked to the street’s corner, looked in all directions. There was no sign of her. He swore beneath his breath. How had she managed to elude him? He retraced his steps, scanned the ground for the imprint of her boots. Their rubber soles had a semi-circular marking of wedges with three v’s down the centre. He had noted that. But the snow’s crust was too hard to show any clear indentation.
He had almost reached the far corner when he heard steps behind him. He skulked into the arch of a portal, peered out when the footsteps grew more distant. There she was, walking in the opposite direction. A small bolt of triumph shot through him. He waited until he saw her turn right, then hastened after her, wondering where she had popped in and out of. He passed a grimy window displaying cut leather and a pair of boots - a shoemaker’s tiny establishment. Maybe that was it. Or this agency announcing tours of the Josefov. Harmless enough. He glanced at his watch. Still a little time before that lunch meeting with Otto Schluss.
A taxi trundled past him and he saw her try to flag it down. Luckily it didn’t stop. She was hurrying now and he matched her steps into the tourist crowded Staré Mesto Square. She wasn’t looking at sights, that was for sure, didn’t swivel her head up at the old astronomical clock or the wedding cake of a church. She was making a bee-line for the taxi rank.
He paused in the shadow of an ironwork stall and poised himself for the leap into a second taxi. But she wasn’t getting in. The driver was shaking a disgruntled head, pointing her towards another car, where the response was the same. Maybe they didn’t understand her. And now she was making determinedly for the Metro.
From the top of the stairs, he watched her looking around in confusion, heading towards an empty ticket booth. The Czechs hadn’t got that together yet. Anyone could just leap onto a train and whizz off. Chances were, they wouldn’t meet up with an inspector checking for stamped tickets. Maybe she had worked that out as well, for she was walking towards the platform now. He waited until he heard the train, then plunged down the stairs and into an adjacent car.
The train rattled and jolted. It wasn’t exactly dirty, but it looked tired and tawdry and what dirt it had, showed. Because it wasn’t old, encrusted dirt like in New York or London, but a mere twenty years new. Modern dirt - a
Russian present to make up for the debacle of the ‘68 occupation.
Ted smiled at his reflection in the door. He was enjoying himself. This was better than sifting through e-mail or waiting by the fax.
As the train screeched to a halt, he looked out, ready to jump if he saw her emerge from the next car. But there was no sign of her. Where on earth was she heading? Two more stops and he saw her emerge. He waited until the buzzer warned him of the door’s imminent close and squeezed through.
At the base of the escalator there was a platform wide huddle of noisy kids coming in the opposite direction. She was edging her way through them with obvious difficulty. They wouldn’t give ground. Quick as a flash he saw it. A little one, lifting her bag from her shoulder, butting through the group like an experienced player, his friends making way, then forming a block round Tess and forcing her towards the steps.
He couldn’t allow that. No way, man. He darted and caught the little runt full front, shoved him to the ground and grabbed Tess’s bag, gave him a kick for good measure, shouted one of his few words of Czech, just for the hell of it, at full blast. ‘Pomoc! Pomoc! Help!’
The entire platform turned and stared. Ted pointed at the youth on the ground and strode off, holding the bag high, rattling away in English. ‘Heh, he nabbed this. I saw him do it. Does it belong to someone here?’ He burst through the dispersing group of kids. ‘I’ve got this purse.’
‘Ted.’ Tessa was looking up at him, her face pale. ‘That’s mine. What a relief.’ She leaned against him, as if she might faint.
‘Easy now.’ He put his arm around her. ‘What’s up? What are you doing here?’
‘I… I was just…’ She started to cry, great, fat silent tears.
‘Heh… It can’t be that bad. Come on. I’ve got your purse. All’s well.’ He ushered her up the escalator. ‘You look worn out. Let’s grab a cab and I’ll take you back to the hotel. You can join me for lunch with Otto Schluss. Okay? And tell me all about it.’
In the taxi, she took her bag from him and with a deep, halting breath opened it. He saw her finger a large envelope.
‘Thank goodness.’ She slumped back into the seat.
‘Got something important in there?’
‘An awful lot of money. Fifteen hundred dollars.’ The eyes she turned on him were large and round.
‘Lucky Tess.’ He wrapped his arm firmly round her. ‘Lucky I came along.’
-20-
___________
Stephen put down the office telephone with a bang and went to stand by the window which looked onto the courtyard.
The little girl was there again, skipping rope on a bit of concrete from which the snow had melted. The bobble on her hat kept time to her jumps. Up, down, up, down, until the rope got tangled in her boots. She glanced up in his direction and after a moment, waved. Stephen waved back.
He watched her for another minute then turned abruptly back to Jan.
‘Look, Jan. I’m not sure there’s much point in going on.’ He took his glasses off and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
‘Is that what your lawyer said?’
‘No. The patent application is coming along. But…’ He jammed the glasses back on his nose. ‘Her assistant was doing a little web surfing and she clicked into a new medical news site and lo and behold, right there was an announcement about a possible new breakthrough in cancer therapies which sounded remarkably like Chrombindin.’
‘I’m not sure I understand.’
Stephen paced. ‘It means one of two things. Either someone,’ he swallowed, ‘Ariane, has sold on my material with amazing speed. Or someone has come up with the same research. In either case…’ He made a despairing gesture.
‘In either case, time is of the essence.’
‘You sound just like Katherine,’ Stephen said bleakly. He slumped into the chair opposite Jan.
‘Was there any detail in the announcement?’
Stephen shook his head.
‘So from what you, yourself, explained to me, it could simply be the American way of signalling a “We got there first”.’
‘That’s right. A little signpost for a future patent battle.’
‘But it is your research, Stephen. So you must be way ahead.’
‘Maybe. Maybe not.’
‘Listen, Stephen. You’re a little depressed now. In a few days everything will look different.’
The look on Jan’s face told him he was set for a lecture. Happily the ring of the telephone deflected him.
Stephen looked away, drawn to the window again. Yes, he was depressed. He hadn’t slept enough. The thought of Tessa with Ted Knight clawed at him. At daybreak he had marched towards the Pariz needing to confront the reality of his dread and then turned back. What would he say, what would he do, if he found them together? And what if this was another Tessa Hughes? In either case, he was both superfluous and ridiculous, like a character out of a Russian novelette.
Finding himself on Wenceslas Square, he had had the notion of calling in on Simone, confiding in her. And then he had bumped into Cary and Antoinette who had told him that Simone wanted to see no one until lunch.
‘It’s for you, Stephen. Simone.’ Jan interrupted his thoughts.
‘Hello, Simone.’
‘Stephen, I’m glad I’ve found you. Look, this would be better said face to face, but you’re tied up, so…’ She paused, the pause as sombre as her tone. ‘I’ve tracked down Ariane.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yes, she’s in Nice. I suspect she’s taken something of yours. You’ll have it back soon.’
‘It may be too late.’
‘Yes.’ She hesitated. ‘You may want to press charges, Stephen, but you should know that Ted Knight is more than likely behind it all.’
‘Ted Knight!’ Stephen felt himself choking.
‘My conjecture is that he’s instigated all this, yes.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Don’t ask me that, Stephen. Just be careful. When he’s desperate, his kid gloves come off and what’s underneath isn’t pretty.’
There was another pause, longer this time, in which Stephen tried to collect his thoughts.
‘And Stephen, your wife is with him. So, if you mind, be doubly careful.’
‘But Tessa wouldn’t…not even if…’ He had started to stammer and Simone cut him off.
‘Ted is clever Stephen. She may know nothing. It is probable that she knows nothing. On the other hand, he knows how to be attractive. He may have told her about your relations with Ariane. He may…well, he is capable of a great deal. So. I have warned you. We will meet later.’
She rang off. Stephen stared at the receiver. Across an immense distance, he heard Jan’s voice, its tones muffled by the buzzing in his head.
‘Tell me, Stephen. We will work it out. We have been through worse.’
Stephen wasn’t listening. He already had his coat on. ‘Later Jan. The talking is for later.’
It had started to snow, great fat moist flakes whitening the world and his vision. He took off his glasses as he rushed towards the corner. There were no taxis in sight. He hurried on, unaware of the cold, alert only to the urgency which now drove him.
‘Tell me, Stephen.’ Jan had caught up to him, was panting at his side.
He told him bluntly, didn’t spell out the apprehension Simone had communicated to him, the fear that made his throat as raw as the wind.
‘But if that’s the case we must expose him. He is dangerous. All those trusting people at the Congress. You leave that to me, Stephen.’ Jan’s voice was taut. He thrust out his hand, hailed a passing cab. ‘None of them will speak to him again,’ he muttered as they climbed in.
Stephen wasn’t listening. He implored the taxi to haste, paid no attention to the disgruntled face the driver turned on them, sat clench-fisted as they huddled in growing traffic, almost leapt out when Jan held him back and pointed out it would nonetheless be faster.
‘I will leave you at
the Pariz and go onto the Congress. You will prefer to be alone, yes?’
Stephen nodded abruptly.
As they were approaching the hotel, he saw them, right there in front of him, Ted bending over to talk to a taxi driver, Tessa standing behind him. He stared. Tessa looked…well, she looked different, beautiful, yes. And composed. Very still. With a peculiar light in her eyes. Maybe she was in on it. With Ted. That clandestine visit to his office. The change of holiday plans.
The thought took him unawares, made his mind reel. He saw Ted’s hand on her shoulder, saw too the vulnerability in the face she turned up at him, the uncertain smile. He pushed the nefarious thought away, was about to leap out of their finally stationary cab, when the one in front pulled off.
‘I’m going to follow them, Jan,’ he murmured.
‘I’ll have to leave you here, then. We will catch up with each other later. Don’t do anything rash.’
Stephen didn’t turn. He was gazing at the taxi in front of them as if his eyes were charged with the opposite magnetic force. As it twisted and turned through the narrow streets, he urged his driver on with a ‘doleva, doprava,’ and when they emerged onto the ring road and the old town with its whitened domes and spires was to their side and the man complained that they were going far, ‘daleko’, and the snow was falling too thickly for his single windscreen wiper, Stephen spurred him on with the promise that he would pay double.
They were crawling along now, keeping pace with the yellow cab in front of them, driving into a distant Prague of tower blocks and scrubby hills, brightened by their cloak of snow. The snow silenced things, muffled and distanced. Like his dream, Stephen suddenly thought. That terrible dream in which he had followed and lost his friend. He sat up stiffly in his seat, gripped the upholstery in front of him.
The Things We Do For Love Page 33
