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The High Flyer

Page 20

by Susan Howatch


  Having repaired my make-up I struggled to my feet. By this time I was remembering Kim’s talk about “wrestling with the Powers,” and it occurred to me that he had made a fundamental mistake. He had said Mrs. Mayfield had the power to control the Powers, as if she were no more than a magician using secret knowledge, but Mrs. Mayfield was the face of that Primeval Power which generated the Powers, I knew that now. In her that Primeval Power was embodied. In her it lived and moved and had its being.

  This sounded like metaphysical nutterguff, but I had to believe my own experience and these were the only words I could find which described it. I had to face the fact that I had been mentally brutalised, battered, humiliated, trounced and trashed by a force far beyond anything which normally emanated from middle-aged suburban bitches who wore cardigans. I had wrestled with the Primeval Power and been decked, that was the truth of it. But I was not about to quit the ring.

  I decided that my next task, before phoning Sophie, was to prove that Mrs. Mayfield could have slithered into my flat before delivering Kim’s organiser.

  Taking a deep breath I headed back at last across the podium to the lobby of Harvey Tower.

  IV

  “Yes, that’s quite correct, Mrs. Betz,” said the porter on duty. “Your husband called earlier to say a lady would be delivering a package for him, so when she arrived in the car park I gave the okay for her to come up to podium level.”

  “And did she reach you straight away?”

  “I think so . . . more or less. I was dealing with some removal men at the time and as one of the lifts had to be set aside for them she might have had to wait for a couple of minutes in the basement, but I remember her coming into the lobby. She wore a royal-blue coat, which made me do a double take as Mr. Betz had warned us all to be on the look-out for ladies in royal blue, but obviously that was just a coincidence.”

  “Did she go back down to the car park after she’d left the package with you?”

  “No, she went straight out onto the podium.”

  This was not the clear-cut evidence I had hoped to hear, but I still thought it probable that Mrs. Mayfield had gone straight from the car park to the thirty-fifth floor and taken a couple of minutes to mess up the flat before riding down to the lobby to deliver the organiser. I was now sure she had come to Harvey Tower expressly for the trashing because otherwise her appearance there made no sense. If Kim had really left his organiser behind at her house he would have sent a messenger to Fulham on a retrieval mission as soon as he had arrived at Graf-Rosen that morning. He would not have wanted to be deprived of his organiser for a moment longer than was necessary.

  I speculated that the Jiffy bag contained not the organiser at all but paper wadding tucked around Kim’s key to the flat, the key he would have left with her the previous evening. On arriving home he would have let himself into the flat by borrowing the spare set of keys, and on leaving for work early that morning he would have returned those keys to the porters’ desk. There was no way I could check this theory yet, since the porter now on duty was not the one who would have been on duty early in the morning, but it seemed a plausible hypothesis, as plausible as the hypothesis that Mrs. Mayfield had used his key to enter the flat that afternoon and afterwards popped the key in the Jiffy bag for him to collect later.

  At that point I cast a sharper eye over the conspiracy between Kim and Mrs. Mayfield, the conspiracy to destroy Sophie’s credibility by making it seem as if she were unbalanced enough to blitz around my flat. If I had not met Mrs. Mayfield on the podium, what deductions would I have drawn from today’s disturbances? I would have heard from the porter that a woman in a royal-blue coat had been to the building after a man claiming to be Kim and speaking with a slight American accent had phoned to ensure her admittance; Kim would have denied it was him and told me the package contained nothing but paper wadding; and I would have jumped to the conclusion that Ms. Fruity-Loops had been hard at work again, this time assisted by her friendly PI.

  I had been riding up in the lift while these thoughts flickered through my brain, but as soon as I reached the thirty-fifth floor it dawned on me that I had to go down again.

  It was essential that I intercepted that Jiffy bag to confirm my suspicions.

  V

  The only reason why I had not demanded the Jiffy bag immediately was that I was unsure how willing the porter would be to relinquish it. I thought there would probably be some rule about never handing over a package to anyone except the addressee or an authorised agent, but I had now psyched myself up to play my least favourite role: the blonde fluffette.

  “Hi, it’s me again!” I said winningly, slinking out of the lift-lobby and draping myself against the porters’ desk. “Oh, I do hope you can help me! It’s about that package the lady in blue delivered. My husband called as soon as I got to the flat just now and—oh wow!—he says the bag contains his Psion organiser and he wants me to phone through some information logged there for a meeting he has in ten minutes’ time! Isn’t it awful how much people depend on technology these days? One really does wonder where it will all end . . .” The porter, who was over sixty and hated technology almost as much as he loved fluffy little wide-eyed blondes, immediately became voluble and I spared a full minute to listen enrapt to his reminiscences about the good old days before I escaped to the lift, the Jiffy bag tucked beneath my arm.

  I experienced a shudder of fear when I finally entered the flat and thought of the balcony, but fortunately I was so keen to open the bag that I was able to wipe the image of a smashed corpse the instant it flashed into my brain. I was diverted further by the discovery that the bag really did contain the organiser. I stared at it, wondering if my conspiracy theory was adrift, but almost at once I realised that the presence of the organiser proved nothing; it could just mean that Kim had genuinely forgotten it and decided he could wait to get it back. I also realised that the only question which truly mattered was whether the bag contained Kim’s key to the flat. If it did, then Mrs. Mayfield had had the means to enter the flat that afternoon.

  I upended the bag and shook it.

  Out dropped the key.

  VI

  I opened my mouth to utter a string of expletives but not one word came out because I was so shocked. It is one thing to devise a thoroughly upsetting theory. It is quite another to see that theory proved true.

  I realised I had to have a drink and that the drink had to be a double vodka martini on the rocks. I went into the kitchen. The small pool of milk was still lying on the floor but I was in such a state that I made no attempt to wipe it up. I just grabbed the ice-tray from the fridge and got on with the job of mixing my tranquilliser. With the glass in my hand I returned to the living-room, but the large windows there were so numerous and the wraparound balcony so extensive that I knew at once that this was not a place where I could focus on regaining my nerve. I withdrew to the bedroom. The wraparound balcony extended there too, but the room had fewer windows and at least I could bolt out of the nearby front door into the windowless lift-lobby if Mrs. Mayfield’s predictions became too insistent.

  I knocked back my drink in less than two minutes. However, I felt that after being beaten up by Mrs. Mayfield a rapid infusion of alcohol was the least I deserved. I decided to have another. After all, these were exceptional circumstances.

  When I returned to the bedroom with my refilled glass I found not only that I was thinking clearly again but that I had reached the point where I was wondering afresh what Sophie knew that Kim was still so anxious to conceal. The impotence seemed at first to fit the bill; if I were to believe Mrs. Mayfield, Kim had lied to me about Sophie’s sterility, Sophie had wanted children which she was perfectly capable of having, and Kim had been so unwilling to father them that he had been smitten by an impotence which Mrs. Mayfield had cured by introducing him to other women and the joys of group sex. But, as I now saw, there was a hole in this story. Kim might well have consulted Mrs. Mayfield if he had been suffering from imp
otence, but he had told me he had met Mrs. Mayfield only three years ago and by then he and Sophie had been living separate lives for a long time. If he really had suffered from impotence at that point it could have had nothing to do with Sophie’s desire for children, a topic which would have surfaced much earlier in the marriage.

  On the other hand I only had Kim’s word that he had met Mrs. Mayfield three years ago.

  And on yet another hand, how far could I believe Mrs. Mayfield anyway?

  As I gulped down my drink I began to feel as if I were drowning in lies and that if I did not take active steps to uncover the truth without delay I was going to go under. I seemed to be encountering the lie as a killer—not just a harmless fib which could be shrugged off but a towering edifice of deceit which could result in derangement and destruction.

  By the time I had finished my drink my mind was made up. My first task was to phone Kim to say I would be out for the evening and my second task was to see Sophie.

  I set down my glass and reached for the bedside phone.

  VII

  It was now after six, a time when most of the office-drones were on their way home and the big cats were calculating how much longer they needed to stay at their desks in order to stop their power-bases being cracked by any charge of lack of commitment. When I dialled Kim on his private line he picked up the receiver halfway through the first ring.

  My heart queasily skipped a beat. “Hi,” I said, making a huge effort to sound normal. “How are you doing?”

  “That’s exactly the question I’ve been wanting to ask you!” he said concerned. “I called Curtis, Towers and found you’d gone home early with a migraine.”

  “I’m better now. Look, I’m calling to say I’ll be out tonight. Sarah’s just phoned in tears so I said I’d take her out to dinner and help her drown her sorrows.” Sarah was a solicitor who had worked at my last firm.

  “Sacked?” he said sympathetically.

  “Dumped. The lover’s gone back to his wife, just as I always thought he would . . . Why were you trying to get in touch with me?” I was sure it was because he had heard from Mrs. Mayfield of my encounter with her, but all he said in reply was: “Warren Schaeffer’s in town unexpectedly and as he wants to discuss strategy with me before he flies on to Tokyo tomorrow morning I said I’d meet him at the Savoy tonight, but God knows when I’ll be back. You know how peppy people are when they arrive after a west-east flight across the Atlantic—he’ll probably still be going strong at midnight.”

  “Dope his Perrier water at dinner!” I said, wondering if Mrs. Mayfield had failed to get through to him; he sounded so natural that I was tempted to believe he really was going to meet that American colleague at the Savoy. “Okay, darling, tell Warren hullo from me—”

  “I sure will—and give my best to Sarah—” He told me he loved me, and hung up.

  Instantly I dragged the telephone directory from the hall closet and looked up the number of the Savoy.

  “Mr. Warren Schaeffer, please,” I said when the operator answered, but although she rang the room for some time no one took the call.

  I consoled myself with the thought that at least Kim had told the truth when he had said Warren was in town. Then I dialled directory enquiries to track down Sophie’s number.

  VIII

  At that point I had a setback: there was no Betz listed at Oakshott. Sophie had evidently elected to have an unlisted number after Kim had left home, a wise decision for a woman living on her own but not a helpful one to a person who wanted to contact her urgently.

  I was just beginning to think I was fatally stymied when I remembered the organiser. Gasping with relief I retrieved it from the living-room, took a long, hard look at the keyboard and willed myself to keep calm. I never admitted it to anyone, but I was far from keen on techno-toys. I did have an organiser—it was vital not to be judged a Luddite— but I still relied on my Filofax and only kept the organiser for show. Tucker had deduced this early in our acquaintance and had tried to give me a helping hand by programming my organiser with an amazing array of information, but although I had been gracious in thanking him I had remained unconverted. I was always afraid of wiping some vital detail by mistake or winding up with a dead battery. In contrast there was never any question that I might fail to keep my Filofax in perfect order.

  Kim’s organiser was the Psion LZ, a terrifying little item which, he had boasted, contained filing systems, a diary, a notepad, a password facility, a clock plus timer with information about time all over the world, and, last but not least, a telephone/address directory. It could even, if properly wired, talk to printers and computers, but now all I wanted was for it to talk to me. I tried to convince myself that any organiser was basically simple to operate, but I was gripped by my fear of being a technodumbo and only my desperation drove me on to dice with disaster. I was sure that Kim would have recorded the new unlisted number, and although he would know the address so well that logging it would have been unnecessary I thought he would have recorded it to round off the entry. Kim liked well-ordered information as much as I did.

  I finally took the plunge and hit the keyboard. Within seconds the telephone/address facility showed up and I paused to congratulate myself, but although I scrolled rapidly through the B-section I found no entry under Betz.

  I wondered if the entry could be under S for Sophie. I tapped the keys—and hit the jackpot. There on the screen before me was the address which I half remembered from the first letter she had written me, the address with a different tree in every line, and below the postal code was the phone number.

  I dialled it. After two rings an answering machine cut in, and this surprised me because I had not thought Sophie was the kind of woman who would be modern enough to have one. But I knew so little about Sophie. My knowledge of her was a mess of preconceived notions, casual prejudice and downright lies.

  The message consisted of Sophie’s voice saying pleasantly: “You have reached Oakshott 346157. Please leave your message after the tone,” but I had no time to be disappointed by this lack of originality because I had to devise my own message. When the tone had blared I said: “Sophie, it’s Carter. I’ve got to talk to you about Kim, Mrs. Mayfield and that bloody group. I apologise for all the times I kicked you in the teeth. Sophie, if you’re listening to this, please, please pick up.” I waited but when nothing happened I concluded: “Okay, I’ll be leaving London for Oakshott at seven and I hope to be with you by eight.”

  I made a note of the address and phone number. I was tempted to check the entries under MAYFIELD but I restrained myself. Better to quit the organiser before I made a mess and betrayed my presence, and besides, I was prepared to bet that any information about Mrs. Mayfield would be impossible to access without a password.

  Returning to the living-room I replaced the organiser on the coffee-table alongside Kim’s front door key, and withdrew to the kitchen to make myself some black coffee. I was already regretting the double vodka martinis.

  While I was dosing myself with coffee I changed into a sweatshirt and jeans. In the bathroom I saw my make-up needed attention again but I merely washed off the remnants and ran a comb through my hair. Normally I would never have faced my predecessor without make-up, but now I was in such a state that I no longer cared. In the mirror my reflection looked younger and also curiously naked as if it had been stripped of an inner confidence I had long taken for granted.

  For a moment I stood shuddering at the memory of Mrs. Mayfield. Then before I could remember the balcony I fled to the garage, and minutes later I was at the wheel of my Porsche.

  IX

  I knew Oakshott lay only a mile from the A3, one of the main arteries leading out of London to the south, but I had never been there. How was I going to find “The Larches” in Elm Drive? I might wander around in the deepening twilight until I was thoroughly lost. On the Kingston bypass I pulled into a petrol station and called Sophie again from my carphone, but the machine was still picking u
p so I severed the connection without leaving a message.

  Traffic was still heavy on the A3 even though the rush hour was past, and it was after eight when I reached the Oakshott exit. The sun had set, and as I coasted along through thick woods I was conscious of feeling the town-dweller’s old, old distrust of the countryside’s creepy loneliness and chilling examples of nature in the raw. I did not like the look of those dark woods. They reminded me of German fairy-tales in which revolting things happened to children who strayed too far into the forest. Nor did I care for the lack of streetlamps. I was relieved when I saw lights ahead, but although I was prepared to stop in the village to ask the way every shop was closed, the petrol station was in darkness and there appeared to be no pub. Surely every English village had a pub! I coasted on, but the pub must have been tucked away down some lane because I never saw it, and the next moment I was back in the forest again with no streetlamps. I decided this was a truly repulsive part of the world, and I was still meditating moodily on this unproductive judgement when I saw not only a turning to the left ahead of me but also a large signboard listing various streets. Halting the car so that my headlights cut through the thickening dusk to the names, I read: “SANDHURST ROAD leading to WOODVILLE PLACE, THE SPINNEY and ELM DRIVE.”

  Swinging the car to the left I began to trickle down Sandhurst Road. Numerous houses, some already floodlit to repel invaders, lurked on relatively small plots amidst an oppressive number of trees on either side of the road. In the glare of the floodlighting I also saw dense undergrowth featuring garish flowers which I suspected were rhododendrons, Surrey’s classy version of the triffid. The journey was getting nastier and nastier. By the time I reached Elm Drive there was such a nervous knot in the pit of my stomach that I decided to stop the car and take some deep breaths.

 

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