by Lewis Orde
“I’m glad, Katherine, because you’ll have all eternity in which to remember it.” He stepped toward her, the gun held like a rigid extension of his hand. Katherine knew what he was doing; she’d read enough books, seen enough films. If she were shot during a struggle over the gun, there would be powder burns. Saxon was coming close enough to be sure he left some.
She never took her eyes off the gun. She would have done better to watch Saxon’s free hand, which came sweeping around to knock her off her feet again. As she fell, Saxon jumped on top of her. She felt the muzzle of the gun jam into her ribs, just below her heart, and she waited for eternity to begin.
A man’s voice yelled, “You son of a bitch!” The pressure of the gun in her side lessened, then the wind was knocked clean out of her body as Raymond Barnhill flung himself on top of Saxon. The gun went off with a loud roar close by Katherine’s head. Big Ben chimed twelve o’clock in her ears, but she wasn’t hurt. Neither was Barnhill or Saxon. She lay on the floor, watching as the American lifted Saxon to his feet, held him by his tie and swung a huge roundhouse right that landed with a sickening thud. Saxon’s head snapped back, his eyes rolled up in his head. Barnhill opened his hand and Saxon fell to the floor.
“Katherine . . . Katherine . . . are you all right?” Barnhill knelt on the floor beside her, a hand cradling her head.
“I’m dazed, that’s all, and bells won’t stop ringing in my ears. Why . . . how . . .?” She shook her head, unable to phrase the question.
“I left Hawtrey’s place right after you did. There was no way I was going to let you come up here by yourself. But you drove like a lunatic. I lost you at the first set of lights. The doorman tried to stop me when I came running into the building, but I just pushed him away. I think he called up here to warn Saxon.”
“The phone rang while he was telling me how he was going to kill me. But he never answered it.” She held Barnhill tightly.
“If that . . .” The American looked at Saxon, who was showing the first signs of regaining consciousness. “If he’d harmed you, I’d have torn him to pieces.”
Footsteps sounded. The doorman entered the office. “Mr. Saxon, are you all right?” He looked at Barnhill and Katherine. “What’s going on here? I’m going to ring the police.”
“Please do,” Barnhill said. “The phone’s on the desk.”
Katherine stood up, breathing deeply. “Walk me down to my car, Raymond. I have to go. I have a story to write.”
“What about the police?”
“Tell them they can reach me at the Eagle. Let me write my last exclusive.”
On the way out of the office, Barnhill scooped up the gun in his handkerchief. The doorman called after them. “Don’t worry,” Barnhill said. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
By the time they reached the white Lotus in St. James’s Square, Katherine’s breathing was normal. Her ribs ached where Barnhill and Saxon had landed on her, but she’d be able to drive back to Fleet Street. Before she climbed into the car, she gave Barnhill a long kiss.
“You’re a lifesaver, Raymond, and I really mean that.”
Barnhill cut the sentimentality with a joke. “You saved my life when I was down. Now I’ve saved yours. We’re even. Go and write your exclusive, before someone else gets wind of it.”
She got into the car and started the engine. Barnhill watched her drive away before he returned to Saxon House. A police car pulled up outside as he entered the elevator, and he held the door for the two police officers who got out of it.
“I can tell you everything you need to know, gentlemen.” He pressed the button for the sixth floor, and winced. He’d hit Saxon so hard that he’d broken his hand.
*
It was just before midnight when Katherine arrived back at the Eagle. Lawrie Stimkin had all the photographs she had asked for. Waiting with him was a copy editor to go over the story as Katherine wrote it.
She sat at a typewriter, inserted a sheet of paper, and stared at it for almost a minute. Looking over her shoulder was Stimkin. At the adjacent desk sat the copy editor, ready to prepare the story for press. Katherine refused to be hurried. This was the most important story of her life, and, quite possibly, the last story she would ever write. After this, managerial decisions would be her forte. Before she wrote the first word, she wanted time to think.
John Saxon was in custody. And Katherine’s last meeting with him had commenced in the same manner as her first. Photographs shoved in front of his face, and explanations demanded. He would not be visiting the Eagle or sending roses after this story was published; that was for sure!
Recalling that first time she’d had lunch with him, at The Anchor, on the south bank of the Thames, Katherine yielded to a trace of nostalgia. She’d enjoyed that lunch, sitting there among the memories of the Globe Theater, swapping Samuel Johnson quotations with a handsome, charming man.
One such quotation came to mind right now. Not one she had exchanged with Saxon over lunch that day, but a piece of Dr. Johnson’s wisdom that seemed particularly fitting to this moment. Her fingers flew over the typewriter to create the opening words of her story:
“Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”
*
The police were waiting for Katherine when she finished the story. She gave them a statement, telling how she had confronted Saxon with her discovery, and how he had tried to kill her. Her voice softened as she described Raymond Barnhill rescuing her with no time left on the clock.
Barnhill returned to the Eagle after the police had gone. Only after ascertaining that Katherine was all right did he agree to go to the hospital to have his broken hand attended to.
Katherine was still at the Eagle when the presses began to roll with her exclusive. From the telephone in Sally’s office, she dialed Nigel Hawtrey’s number. Sid Hall answered.
“You can stop your babysitting job now, Sid. Hawtrey’s in the paper along with everyone else. He won’t get very far if he tries to run.”
She kicked off her shoes, stretched out on Sally’s couch, and closed her eyes. She’d grab a few minutes rest before driving home.
She was still fast asleep on the couch when Sally came in at nine-fifteen.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
THE BRITISH PATRIOTIC LEAGUE’S election campaign collapsed. Within a day of the Eagle story, every candidate withdrew from the race; instead of heralding in a political upheaval, they had been sacrificial pawns in a higher power play.
The three members of the League’s executive committee were arrested. Alan Venables was charged with the murder of Brian Waters. Neville Sharpe and Trevor Burns were charged with conspiracy to murder, as was John Saxon. Saxon was also charged with attempting to murder Katherine. A police spokesman told eager reporters that further charges were pending.
Arrest warrants on conspiracy charges were also issued for two Conservative MPs, Edwin Johnson and Daniel Cooper, as well as Sir Donald Leslie, Jeffrey Dillard, William Brown, Nigel Hawtrey, and everyone Katherine could remember meeting through John Saxon. Hawtrey, living up to the image of a sharp rogue that Deidre Chalfont had ascribed to him, saved police the bother of searching for him. Once he saw the extent of the damage, he surrendered himself at London’s West End Central police station. With him was a top criminal lawyer, who stated that his client, in return for favorable treatment, would testify for the Crown.
In the general election on June 9, the Conservative government was returned to power with a landslide victory. The reactionary wing, stripped of its two leaders and ripped apart by the scandal, fell to pieces. Despite the scope of victory, not one of the Johnson/Cooper followers held his seat.
At the end of June, Sally Roberts retired from the position of editorial director of Eagle Newspapers Limited. Katherine succeeded her, maintaining the office on the executive floor in the same bright and cheerful decor that Sally had chosen. Although there had been a change, there was still a woman on the board of directors.
Two week
s later, on a Saturday morning in the middle of July, Sally and Roland were married in a civil ceremony. Henry and Joanne were pageboy and bridesmaid, and Katherine filled the role of matron of honor. “Remember today,” she told her son and daughter as she checked their appearance before the ceremony. “Only very lucky boys and girls have the opportunity to be pageboy and bridesmaid at their grandfather’s wedding.”
After the ceremony, a party was held under a green-and-white striped marquee erected in Roland’s back garden. More than two hundred people attended, and uniformed waitresses had to fight their way through a solid mass of people to serve champagne and hors d’oeuvres. Only when all the guests sat down for lunch did the chaos cease.
Roland and Sally shared a small top table with Katherine and Raymond Barnhill and Henry and Joanne. As lunch was served, Katherine took a white envelope from her bag. Smiling, she handed it to her father.
“A special wedding gift. You’ll find it very useful.”
Roland hesitated to open the envelope. He saw the wide grin on Sally’s face and knew that she was a party to whatever the joke was. “Does it go bang?”
“Open the envelope and find out.”
Slitting the flap, Roland pulled out a gift voucher for a dozen driving lessons. He raised an eyebrow at his daughter. “To suggest a man’s driving is poor can be taken as an attack upon his very virility.”
“No one’s questioning your virility, Roland darling,” Sally said. “Just your driving.” She turned to Katherine. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure he takes the lessons. I won’t drive him anywhere, and I won’t let Arthur Parsons behind the wheel either. He’ll get the message.”
Katherine threw her arms around Sally’s neck and kissed her. “I always knew you’d make a great mum!”
*
In the evening, Katherine and Barnhill returned to Kate’s Haven with the children. Henry and Joanne, tired from the day’s excitement, needed little urging to go to bed.
The night was clear and mild. Katherine and Barnhill watched the moon come up from the back patio, where they shared an upholstered swing chair. Like the children, they were comfortably exhausted, content to hold hands and swing gently back and forth.
After fifteen minutes, Barnhill broke the silence. “These last couple of weeks, I’ve been thinking about starting on a new book.”
“Is that a tactful way of saying you’re handing in your notice? We won’t accept it, you know.”
“Don’t worry. I need the stability of a regular job at the Eagle more than the Eagle needs me.”
“What will the book be about? Vietnam again?”
“No. I’m cured of that hang-up. I’m cured of a few things,” he said, and Katherine knew exactly what he meant. “I was thinking of doing a roman à clef on what happened with the British Patriotic League and the influential businessmen who were the brains behind it.”
“Am I going to be in it?”
“Do you want to be?”
“Only if you make me very beautiful and very intelligent. And only if I can suggest my own happy ending. After all, it’s my hard work that’s given you the idea.”
Barnhill leaned back, smiling. “I’m damned glad you quit writing and moved up to the executive floor.”
“Why? Frightened of a little competition?”
“No. I’m frightened of the confusion.”
“What does that mean?”
“Say a woman writer with an established byline gets married. What happens — does she have to alter her byline?”
“Of course not. She keeps her byline the way it is. She has a dual identity; that’s all.”
Barnhill wrapped his arms around her, pulled her close, and kissed her. “But since you’ve been appointed editorial director of Eagle Newspapers — which, by the way, would have happened even if you weren’t the proprietor’s daughter — the question of dual identity is academic.”
Understanding came. “Is that a proposal?”
“Didn’t I make it clear enough?”
“Not really.”
“Let’s try again. What would you say to marrying me?”
“I’d say wonderful. But the children have a vote in this as well. I’ll ask them first thing tomorrow morning.”
“Ask them now.”
“They’re asleep.”
“Wake them.”
“You’re cruel.”
“Is it kind to keep me in suspense until the morning?”
“Very well.” Katherine led the way into the house and up to her daughter’s bedroom. Joanne blinked in the sudden light, but she never really came to. When Katherine asked, “Would you like me to marry Raymond?” Joanne gave a sleepy smile and closed her eyes again.
“That was a definite yes,” Barnhill said.
“Can you read children’s minds?”
“I can read their smiles.”
They were more fortunate with Henry. He sat up in bed, fully awake, the instant his door was opened. “What is it?”
Katherine sat on the edge of her son’s bed, while Barnhill stood on the other side. “Henry, Raymond has asked me to marry him. What do you think about that?”
The boy’s clear blue eyes flicked to Barnhill, then back to his mother. “Would I become Henry Barnhill?”
“No, darling, you’ll always remain Henry Kassler, after your father.” She glanced up at Barnhill, who nodded in agreement. He had no problem with Katherine and the children maintaining strong memories of Franz.
“Then I think that would be super,” Henry said. “Will we have another wedding like today? I might be the only boy ever to be a pageboy at the weddings of his mother and his grandfather.”
They were both smiling when they left Henry’s room and returned downstairs. Katherine made hot chocolate, which they took out to the patio. The moon was high, and as they watched, a shooting star streaked down from the sky.
“Make a wish,” Barnhill said.
“No need. Everything I want has already come true.”
Barnhill gazed at the point where the shooting star had disappeared. “I don’t mind if you want to remain Katherine Kassler.”
“No, I’ll change. I’ll be Katherine Barnhill.”
“It might not be such a good idea after all. Could be confusing with two people named Barnhill.”
“Don’t argue with me. I’ll be Katherine Barnhill, and that way every woman at Eagle Newspapers will know you belong to me. You won’t be distracted from your work by other women making eyes at you.”
Barnhill whistled through his teeth. “Boy, you marry a woman you work for, and straightaway she starts laying down the law.”
But Katherine was not listening. She was running the new name over in her mind and deciding she liked it more and more.
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