11 Harrowhouse (3 page)

He took some of the edge off the moment by nonchalantly dropping the loupe into his business case. He picked up his packet, gave the envelope an extra fold and dropped that in also.

“I assume you're satisfied?” asked Meecham.

A nod from Chesser, and a forced smile. He felt transparent, as though Meecham were sighting into him for imperfections.

“Watts will complete the transaction,” said Meecham. And with that he left the room.

Chesser was relieved by Meecham's departure. It improved Chesser's chances of making it out of there before erupting. He wrote out a bank draft for seventeen thousand. Watts gave him a receipt. Chesser knew it was probably Watts who had chosen those stones for his packet. Watts was in charge of grading, classifying the stones according to carat, color, and clarity. But he couldn't blame Watts. Watts was only a salaried employee, not an officer of The System. Just doing what he was told.

Watts verified that, as he handed the receipt across to Chesser. In a guarded, low tone he said, sincerely, “I'm sorry, sir.”

Moments later Meecham, in his fourth-floor office, was using his absolutely private phone. After he dialed, and while the number was ringing, he moved to the window. He looked out at his most frequent view of London and did not really see the dome of St. Paul's, which dominated the horizon. He glanced down to the street and saw Chesser getting into a Daimler.

Meecham was certain that Chesser was cursing him personally and thought that perhaps Chesser's next packet should be even more of the same, for good measure. However, he had to admire Chesser's restraint. He would have wagered against it. He watched the Daimler drive off, and realized the number he was calling had rung more than enough.

Perhaps she was out, he thought, or more likely she was busy. He disconnected and tried the number again. He must have dialed incorrectly before, because now she picked up on the second ring.

After hello's, she said, “I thought it might be you, love.”

He was pleased. It meant she'd had him in mind.

“It's been more than a week,” she said.

“I've been busy,” he said, not as convincingly as he might have.

“And you haven't been behaving yourself, have you?”

“No.”

“You're a bad one, you are.”

“Very.”

“You deserve something for being bad. Don't you love?”

A yes, with calculated submission.

“I've got just the thing,” she promised.

He was tempted but remembered Whiteman and had to sacrifice. He quickly arranged it, gave her the details, and told her he would be responsible for her fee.

When he said good-bye, he said it softly and, for the first time in the conversation, he referred to her by name. Sherry.

After the call, Meecham thought he might make another, similar, for himself. He decided to put it off until he'd had a sauna. One thing for sure, he'd stay in town tonight. Go out to Hampshire in the morning. A half Saturday and all of a Sunday would be almost too much wife and country.

CHAPTER 3

C
HESSER WAS
at Heathrow Airport a half hour early. Information said BEA flight 36 from Paris would arrive as scheduled, not early as Chesser hoped. He went quickly to the upper level, his eagerness taking him.

He could have spent the time more comfortably distracted. There was a convenient bar. But he chose to wait standing at one of the large windows overlooking the dulled silver of planes receiving final service or being guided in. A flow of sibilant sound underscored the embraces he witnessed, the last of farewells and the first of welcomings.

Chesser and Maren had been apart only four days, but to him it seemed longer. Waiting, Chesser looked at his watch at least twice every minute and, finally, there was the black, crimson, and white of the BEA insignia on a plane taxiing in and swinging into position. He appreciated that plane. It was the one. Bringing her to him.

His eyes searched for the color of nutmeg. The shade of her hair. Viking hair, he called it. His insides did a catch when he saw it. She came out of the plane with eyes up, aimed precisely at him, as though she'd expected where he would be. She was wearing rich blue, ample-legged trousers and a soft shirt. Better for traveling. Among the other passengers in their wrinkled suits and dresses, she was outstanding, casually neat and fresh. She carried a Vuitton satchel. With her free hand she waved to Chesser. The wind chose that moment to take her hair across her face and she made no attempt to discipline it. That was very much like her.

He waited for her outside customs, a delay that seemed particularly cruel, as they were in sight of one another but not permitted closer. They gestured impatiently while she waited her turn in line. Then, oblivous to the public place, she came to him, against him full length. Without words, each reassured the other that everything was all right now.

When they arrived at the Connaught suite, she quickly unpacked, hung, and placed her things beside his. It seemed to him that she was decorating, dispersing loneliness. Even while she was in the bathroom putting her cosmetics and other personal necessities into proper transient place, he sat on the covered commode to observe her every movement. She did not stop to kiss him, knowing that if she did they would not stop, and, although the unpacking could have been done later, it served their mutual want with extra provocation.

When there was nothing more to unpack, she went to the window and gazed out toward Grosvenor Square. It was still daytime.

“Shall I order a drink?” Chesser asked.

Her reply was her hand on the drapery drawstring, pulling to make the room almost dark.

They never did their lovemaking in total darkness, for they also loved with their eyes. It helped each to know more surely of the other's needs. She liked him to undress her, particularly the first time in a new place. As now. She stood and he knew. He didn't hurry, proof of his control. And she didn't assist, which demonstrated her total willingness.

Across the large bed, in the kind half-light, they loved slowly and confidently. Afterward, they closed their eyes and floated on, feeling together. Her head on his shoulder, strands of her hair across his chest, her right leg overlapping both of his. He heard her breathing change and knew she was asleep. He needed to get up for the bathroom but didn't want to disturb her. Soon she shifted in her sleep, turned from him, and he had only to remove his arm from beneath her head to be free. He took care to be quiet. He didn't even flush the commode.

He sat in a chair near the bed and smoked. She was now in her usual sleeping position—on her side with both legs drawn up symmetrically and her hands, palm to palm, contained between her thighs. Chesser enjoyed observing her while she was so completely unaware. He thought, possessively, how deceiving her body was. When she was dressed she appeared angular, fashionably attractive but very thin. It led one to estimate she would be too thin when undressed. But there for Chesser to see was the naked truth. She was small-boned and her body had ample flesh in proportion. Ideally distributed. Each part of her curved nicely, just enough to define transition to her next part. No studding hipbones, as might be expected. Instead, a soft, rising line of hip that dipped gradually and then deeply to form her waist.

Her skin was northern pale, all over. She was Swedish, born and raised in a remote place far north, nearly on the Arctic Circle. Her ancestors had protected themselves from the harsh elements, so her paleness was inherent. She loved the sun, but it was too strong for her, burned her quickly whenever she trusted it.

The impression she created with her lean body and pale skin was fragility, perhaps a lack of stamina. She appeared to be the sort of woman who needed sanctuary, who would be at her best when dependent, relating passively to a man. Little more.

Chesser had thought that when he first saw her.

He had soon discovered how actively she contradicted that impression. At Gstaad she skied dangerously fast but very well. At Deauville she chose to ride the most nervous and challenging horses. En route to Le Mans she handled her sports car with alarming abandon and admirable authority. Once, in Monaco, on a day when a heavy mistral kept all small craft within the breakwater, Maren insisted on going out to pilot a speedboat through swells deep as canyons. Chesser went along merely because he preferred to drown with her. The boat smashed against the ridges of blown sea with such impact that at times it was nearly vertical. Maren was stimulated, while Chesser, reasonably enough, hung on.

He preferred to believe that she wasn't compulsive about it, that she didn't need to go from one dangerous challenge right to another. She merely took the chances as they came, and when something involved risk she seemed to enjoy it more. So he told himself.

Chesser, at first, was amazed and amused by Maren's unexpected agility and daring. But, as his love for her grew, he became alarmed. He considered her reckless, skillfully reckless he had to admit, but nonetheless reckless. The fear of losing her, the possibility of it, infected him. To taunt that possibility was foolish and thoughtless of her. He told her that; calmly accused her. In reply she told him that everyone was always competing against death for life.

They argued then, vehemently. Words such as stupid and coward were used as weapons, and they spent that night apart. Sleepless. The following day all that was needed for reconciliation was the sight of one another.

It taught Chesser not to restrain her.

She made a silent vow not to take so many chances, for his sake.

However, it didn't stop Chesser from wondering why Maren found danger so fascinating. Was it something left over from Jean Marc? Or had it always been there? He concluded the latter was most likely. It had probably been a mutual quality, one of the attractions that had brought Maren and Jean Marc together. Surely it was the cause of their violent severance. Jean Marc crushed beneath the overturned Lotus, instantly dead at four in the morning on a wet road of the Bois de Boulogne. It was assumed that Jean Marc, the husband, had been the driver. Maren, the wife, was thrown clear and suffered only minor injuries. But she was hurt, indelibly, by it. Jean Marc had been very young and very rich. Maren's great beauty and youth were her equally important contributions. They had plenty of everything to spend together, until they gambled it all at once on a slick corner, taking it too fast for some extra exhilaration, just not matching that turn with a good enough turn.

Maren confided to Chesser that, actually, she had been the driver. Only Chesser knew. Maren didn't confess, merely told him in order to share it, and, although he looked for signs of guilt, he saw none, at least not on the surface.

A month after the accident, Maren went back to modeling. She was sharply criticized by Jean Marc's friends, who thought at least a year of secluded mourning was respectfully due. She defied them all with insouciance, and soon again was appearing on the pages of
Vogue Française
.

She needed the distraction, desperately, and besides, she claimed, during her personal communion with the spirit of Jean Marc he'd given his permission. The temporal Jean Marc, however, had not been so liberal. His will, properly notarized, clearly stated that all his wealth and holdings should go to his wife, Maren. She was the sole heir, entitled to all the millions that had been handed down to him. With one condiiton. If she should ever choose to marry again, the entire fortune would automatically go to the lawyer-executors.

Chesser and Maren met a year after the accident. As soon as their relationship formed into serious involvement, Maren told Chesser about Jean Marc's restricting condition. She believed it only fair that Chesser should know why it was impossible for her to just fly off somewhere and become Mrs. Chesser. It just wasn't practical.

Chesser agreed.

Maren took the same opportunity to make a condition of her own. She wanted to be able to speak of the late Jean Marc without inhibition, without fear of provoking Chesser's jealousy.

Chesser also agreed to that. After all, he reasoned, it was easy enough to compete with a dead man for a live, sensually demanding twenty-five-year-old woman.

So, it was not unusual for Chesser to be somewhere with Maren, at a restaurant or inn, for example, and have her remark, quite casually and often with tender reminiscence, “Jean Marc and I came here once.” She never did it intentionally to irritate Chesser. It would just come out. Jean Marc used to do this or that. Jean Marc once told me. Jean Marc liked. Jean Marc detested. Jean Marc never. Jean Marc always.

It made Chesser uncomfortable at first. Then he got used to it. She was merely remembering aloud, he realized, and, after a while, Chesser began thinking of Jean Marc as an old friend. In fact, someone he knew well, though someone he'd never known.

Maren's verbalized memories of Jean Marc never created a problem. Chesser handled them with extraordinary confidence. What did become a problem, however, was Jean Marc's money. There was so much of it. There were the evident things, such as huge, beautiful houses, precious paintings and objets d'art, stables of thoroughbreds, yachts, and planes. Then there were the intangibles. Controlling interests in various companies, great blocks of stock and accumulated dividends. It was the sort of complex fortune that continuously nourished itself. By its size it increased at a rate that defied depletion. Maren could spend and spend while she became richer and richer.

She had only a vague idea of her worth as the widow of Jean Marc. Many, many millions was her nebulous estimate. Chesser, on the other hand, knew precisely what her financial status would be if she were to become Mrs. Chesser. His two hundred thousand dollars in the Swiss account, which he referred to as his fuck-you money, was a pittance by comparison. For his daily bread Chesser was dependent upon The System. Profit from packets brought him about a hundred thousand a year. Part of that went to ex-wife Sylvia; taxes took even more. The rest didn't approach buying Chesser's, not to mention Maren's, way of life.