“Dreadful.”
Perhaps because he’d so recently been thinking of his father, he heard his mother’s crisp voice: “Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer.” He did not know what to say next. Once they were moving again, Vanessa relented slightly. “What about Milan?” she asked.
“Milan was actually okay. We got some things ironed out. I sat in a chair that belonged to Lucrezia Borgia.”
“How did you manage that?”
“It belongs to one of the directors of the company I work with.”
“Nothing like that happened in New York. Maybe I sat in a chair belonging to Donald Trump. I wasn’t in good shape for dealing with the city.”
He had not been to her house before—she’d always insisted on taking a taxi home alone after their dinners—and he was surprised when she turned into a new development of large brick terraced houses. They passed a group of children on their way home from school and pulled up beside a pink flowering tree. Ewan got out of the car with his bag and briefcase; the breeze caught his tie. He looked at the tree, wondering what kind it was. Then Vanessa was ushering him through the front door and up a flight of stairs to the kitchen. He set his bag and briefcase down near a radiator. “Would you like anything?” she asked. “I’m sure there’s the usual things—tea, coffee, booze.”
“Don’t you live here?”
“No. This is my brother’s house. My flat is on the other side of Chiswick High Road. He’s in Dublin for the week, and I have a set of keys. I thought we’d be safer here.”
“Good Lord, Vanessa, this isn’t James Bond.”
“If only it were.” She braced herself against the counter. “Did Coyle try to reach you?”
“Yes.” He tugged at the cuffs of his jacket, dreading the admission that was about to come.
“You talked to him, didn’t you? Oh, Ewan, after I begged you not to.”
“I’m sorry. I couldn’t help it. They put the call through when I was in a meeting. I couldn’t claim not to be there. I did do my best. I was out of the hotel by seven this morning.”
“So what did he say to you? And you to him?”
In the house across the street Ewan saw a man washing dishes. “Nothing. He wanted to meet with me as soon as possible. He didn’t say why. In fact that was the most sinister thing about his call; he assumed I’d know what it was about.”
“Oh,” sighed Vanessa. She hid her face in her hands.
Ewan longed to put his arms around her. Instead he said, “I think a cup of tea is a good idea.” He spotted an electric kettle and moved to fill it and switch it on. Neither of them spoke while the water rumbled to the boil. Vanessa made tea and led the way through a double door into a large room furnished with a three-piece suite and several occasional tables. The windows overlooked a brown expanse of water, which, after a few seconds, Ewan recognised as the Thames. “This is splendid,” he said, and recalled his earlier struggle with the word.
“Yes,” said Vanessa. She perched in one corner of the sofa, motioning him to an adjacent armchair. He sat down. She poured the tea and passed him a mug.
“So,” he said, “are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
“I’m afraid I have to.” She drank some tea and gazed out at the river. Ewan stole a glance at her admirable profile. In spite of her nocturnal phone calls, she looked wonderfully fresh. At last she said, “There’s a good way and a bad way to tell this story, but I might as well tell you the bad way, because that, substantially, is what Coyle is piecing together. When we had dinner at The Ivy, you mentioned the Gibson Group merger. I was stunned you’d told me something so important—it wasn’t as if I’d been trying to pump you. All this does have the redemptive quality of being unpremeditated. But once you’d told me, the information nagged at me.
“My brother, Patrick, is very hard up right now. His marriage fell apart last year, he’s stuck with massive alimony, and his business is going bust. We thought it might be risky for him to buy the shares himself, but he had an old friend who was already playing the market and who had everything in place to make a purchase. Brian Ross is his broker.”
“And what happened?”
“The obvious thing I didn’t consider. Ralph, the friend, got greedy. I’d been thinking small scale, twenty, twenty-five thousand. Ralph mortgaged his house, raised three hundred thousand and bought the shares twenty-four hours before the merger went through. The Serious Fraud Office was bound to notice.” She paused to slip off her shoes and curl her legs up on the sofa.
“I urged Patrick to go to Dublin; he had business there anyway,” she went on. “That still leaves Ralph, though, and he’s the weak link. He can’t explain the purchase, and it doesn’t fit with anything else in his portfolio. So far he’s keeping mum, but Coyle is leaning on him.” She stared down at her mug of tea, avoiding Ewan’s eyes.
“Vanessa,” he exclaimed, “how could you be so stupid?”
Her chin rose defiantly. “It didn’t seem so stupid at the time. Every week I hear of someone making a fortune; why not someone I care about for a change? All I did was pass on a casual remark you’d made to me at dinner. My brother happened to mention it to Ralph, and Ralph decided to take action. Nothing very terrible. I didn’t hurt anyone.”
He stood up and went over to the window. Beyond the small lawn the Thames flowed with surprising speed; it must have rained here too, he thought. “You hurt me,” he said. “Did you ever think of that?”
Before she could answer, he hurried on. “I’ve worked in the City for ten years, during which no one has had cause to question my integrity. In a few minutes of casual conversation, you wiped that out. I’ve no idea how a court of law would view your behaviour, or your brother’s, but I’m fairly positive they’d find me guilty. The Gibson Group was in my charge, and by virtue of that I was privy to certain information, and because I was in love with you I squandered that information.”
Love. He had said the word, though not in the way he imagined, more like an invitation to anger than a proffering of affection. He turned and saw Vanessa still sitting in the corner of the sofa, watching him, her legs drawn up under her. She was infinitely appealing. No, he thought angrily, she was like a child. If they were caught she would feel bad, she would understand then how she’d harmed him, but for now she was simply baffled by this mysterious talk of reputation and integrity—fool’s gold in which only the eccentric believed.
She stood up and came over to the window, taking his hands in hers. “Ewan,” she said, “I’m sorry. You’re right, I didn’t think about you. If I had, if I’d had a brain in my head, I wouldn’t have done it.”
She looked at him, her greyish eyes wide, and he was filled with disgust at his own self-righteousness. Who was he to claim she had no moral sense? She had done nothing to elicit the information, save tuck her marmalade hair behind her ears and smile at him across a restaurant table. He was the one who had behaved like a child, trading secrets for love and not even admitting what he was doing. “I’m sorry too.” He kissed her forehead.
They stood there for a moment, until Vanessa released his hands. “It’s cold, isn’t it?” she said. “I’m going to turn up the central heating. Help yourself to more tea.”
By the time she came back, Ewan had fetched his notebook, refilled his mug, and returned to his seat. Somehow, he thought, they would find a way to undo the harm they’d done. “So,” he said, “what next?”
Vanessa sat very upright in her boardroom manner. “The big question is whether to try to save Ralph.”
Ralph, Ewan thought incredulously. “Why the hell should we do that?” he demanded. “If he hadn’t been greedy, none of this would have happened.”
“That’s true, but there are a lot of ifs in this. If Ralph talks, we’ll all be in trouble.” She started to say something, broke off, then went on. “Coyle’s hounding him like an axe murderer. I can see why people confess even when they’re innocent. You get to the point you’d say anything.”
<
br /> “I don’t plan to say anything,” said Ewan stiffly, “but if Coyle asks, I’ll have to tell him what I remember of our dinner conversation. Not to would be lying.”
“And what about this conversation? He’ll probably want to know what you were doing this evening.”
Ewan paused, his pen hovering over his notebook. He realised from the heat in his face that he was blushing. “This evening is purely personal. It has nothing to do with Coyle.”
“So our dinner was business? I thought we were going on a date.”
She was wearing that little frown again. She had taken off her jacket, and against her grey pullover her face struck Ewan as strangely radiant. “You should have been a solicitor,” he said.
“I’m just asking,” she said, wrapping her arms around herself. “You’re the only person I can trust. This would be an awfully inconvenient time for me to be fired.”
They went to a local restaurant which served British food by day and Thai by night and ate pad thai and shrimp curry in coconut milk. Vanessa talked about a film she’d seen in New York. Ewan mentioned his trip to Mill of Fortune, and quite suddenly, he was doing what he had imagined on the plane from Edinburgh to London. “Guess what,” he said. “I found a baby in a bus station.”
“A baby in a bus station?” she echoed. “How do you mean you found it?”
“I went to the Gents in Perth bus station, and there was a baby lying on the floor, wrapped in a yellow poncho.”
“So what did you do—hand it in at lost property? Do you want some more noodles?” She pushed the dish in his direction.
“Please.” He hadn’t realised until he began to eat how hungry he was. He and Marco had worked through lunch, and he’d dashed to the airport at the last moment. “No. It was a girl, and she ended up spending the weekend with us at Mill of Fortune. My sister took her to the police on her way back from driving me to Edinburgh.”
“Why do you think she’d been left?”
“I haven’t a clue. She was about four months old—or so Mollie thought—healthy, dark-skinned. Maybe Indian. I’m going to ring the police tomorrow to see what’s become of her.” Guiltily he recalled his promise to Lucrezia. “First thing tomorrow,” he added. He manoeuvred his chopsticks around another mouthful of noodles and waited for Vanessa’s reaction.
“She was lucky you were the one to find her, given all the weirdos around nowadays. Perhaps she’ll turn out to be the daughter of a rajah, and he’ll offer you a fabulous reward.”
“Actually I worry that we, Mollie and I, might seem like the weirdos, keeping her for an entire weekend. One thing led to another, my luggage was on the bus, Mollie lives way out in the country, the car wouldn’t start,” he faltered. There had been something, beyond geography or his own incompetence, that made it hard to return Olivia, but he could not bring it into focus. He looked over at Vanessa. “We did our best,” he offered, lamely, for the second time that day.
She smiled. “It all sounds perfectly reasonable. It would be different if you’d found a lost two-year-old, desperate for her parents, or if the baby had needed medical attention. But someone deliberately abandoned her, and you did her a good turn by giving her a couple of days’ food and affection.”
“I hope so, and she did cheer my sister up. She was quite depressed until I arrived with Olivia.”
“Olivia?”
“That’s not her real name, just the one Mollie gave her because we were tired of calling her ‘it.’ I’m not sure why she chose Olivia.” He fingered the checked tablecloth, remembering Mollie’s odd insistence on the name.
“My best friend at school was named Olivia, but we always called her Ollie.” Vanessa giggled. “I was called Vanilla.”
“That’s not bad. I was the kind of boy no one ever bothered to nickname. It was a source of great sorrow to me.”
“Poor Ewan,” she said mockingly. She set down her chopsticks. “You know what your story reminds me of? The time my brother ran away when he was eight. He left after lunch, but we didn’t discover he was gone until suppertime. My father and the neighbours went out looking for him, and my mother and I stayed at home in case Patrick showed up. We played snap at the kitchen table, game after game. I’d never been up so late before. Then the door burst open and my aunt Tanya ran in. They’d found Patrick—he was fine—on the road to Swainswick.
“We were still laughing when my father appeared, with Patrick asleep in his arms. He just stood there holding him and said they’d found the body of a little girl in the woods. ‘Oh, God,’ my mother said. ‘And was she …?’ She sat down at the table and began to sob. I didn’t understand what was going on, nor why we weren’t laughing anymore, but ever since that night I’ve felt that taking care of Patrick was one of my jobs in life.”
“Lucky Patrick,” said Ewan. He understood, of course he did—wasn’t this how he felt about Mollie?—but he could not keep the bitterness from his voice.
The check came, Vanessa paid, and they were out in the street, walking back to the car. They had parked opposite a fish and chip shop, and as Ewan waited for her to unlock the doors, the smell of vinegar wafted over him. On winter evenings he and Mollie had used to stop on the way home from school to buy chips. An abyss opened. It would be very inconvenient for him, too, to be fired. Then they were in the car, driving back to the house. “That was a good meal,” Vanessa said, and he forgot the abyss and thought instead about the remainder of the evening and how it might unfold. He made some comment about his local Thai restaurant.
The house had warmed up during their absence. In the kitchen, Ewan watched while Vanessa hung her jacket over a chair and poured two glasses of water. Thai food always made her thirsty, she remarked, handing him one. They stood drinking in silence. When he had finished, Ewan put down his empty glass, took off his spectacles, and rubbed his eyes.
He opened them, to see Vanessa standing right before him. “You look tired,” she said. “Would you like to stay the night? It’s a long way back to Barnsbury.”
He stared at her, wondering what exactly she was offering, and she stared back, not smiling but as if she might be about to do so. All she had wanted, he thought, was to help her brother; was that so terrible? Vanessa took his silence for assent. She picked up his bag and led the way up another flight of stairs, to a small room with a double bed.
“The spare room,” she said.
Ewan stood blinking stupidly in the soft glow of the bedside lamp. He loved her, never mind Nina and Lucrezia Borgia. She was saying something about towels and bathrooms when he stepped forward and put his arms around her. He buried his face in her hair. “You must know how I feel about you.”
“I thought you were angry with me,” she murmured.
“Angry? No, I was just upset.” He tried not to move, barely to breathe, for fear the slightest gesture might put her to flight.
She leaned against him. “Ewan,” she said, “I’ve been so scared.” Gently she moved out of his embrace until she was standing at arm’s length, studying him with that calm, half-smiling look of hers. “I know this is awfully forward, but can I share your bed? Just for the company?”
Later Ewan thought of this day as his own particular Ides of March, a day on which he had failed all possible moral tests, but at the time he could think of nothing he wanted more than to sleep next to Vanessa, to smell her hair and hold her. She showed him one bathroom and went to use another. He brushed his teeth, put on his pyjamas, and climbed into bed. He had barely registered the chill sheets when Vanessa returned, wearing a nightdress of Victorian propriety, and climbed in beside him.
“You must do what you think right about Coyle,” she said, and turned out the light.
Chapter 14
Time, Kenneth thought, the good old tickety-tock, was changing. Ever since he quit the infirmary, the days had tended to linger too long, congealing before him like the plates of food his mum kept waiting in the oven. This had been especially true in January, when the streetlights glow
ed soon after four and he had no dough to go anywhere. One evening he had wandered around Safeway until a shop detective threw him out. “I don’t know whether you’re loitering with or without intent,” the man said. “But whichever it is, do it somewhere else.” He had held on to Kenneth’s arm the entire length of the cereal aisle, in a way that made Kenneth wish his pockets were crammed with steaks and booze. Now, since he’d dumped Grace on the floor of the Gents, the days were just the opposite, so skinny they slipped right through his fingers. He had barely got a grip on all the things he needed to do before night fell.
Time was something he understood because he’d done a project on it at school for Miss McBain. He was nine, and his year in her class had turned out to be his last of regular attendance. Being late for Miss McBain, even five minutes, was out of the question; if she had told him to come in on a Saturday, he would have been there. She was as upright as a ruler, and winter or summer wore a blouse, a tweed skirt, and a pair of thick-soled lace-up shoes. In fine weather she sometimes took them on biology walks up Kinnoull Hill. She strode along with her walking stick, stopping to point out a thrush’s nest neatly woven into the fork of a tree or a caterpillar eating a nettle leaf. It probably wouldn’t have been hard on these expeditions to skive off to the swings or the sweetie shop, but Kenneth would as soon have thought of trying to fly.
During the summer term everyone had to do a project. Miss McBain wrote the topics on slips of paper, and one by one the boys and girls came up to her desk to pick a slip out of her blue felt hat. Kenneth’s was Time. He stared at it in bewilderment. Willy in the next desk had Whales; now, that was a proper topic. He waited after school to speak to her, but when at last she beckoned him over he didn’t say anything, only held out his paper, trusting her to do the talking.
“Time,” she said. “You lucky boy. There’s so much to say.” She made a speech about different ways of measuring time—the sun, clocks, calendars—and how he measured time too, by growing and by noticing the sequence of events.
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