Act of Exposure (11 page)

Abby looked at
the hand then looked directly at Val. 'And what about you doing the
right thing. What about you going to the CRE?'

'No!'

It was at
times like these that Abby wanted to shake some sense into her best
friend. Val's comments to Medina had been heard by a room full of
people whereas Medina's own remarks had not been heard at all. Val
was on unsafe ground, but she was a stubborn woman.

Abby loved her
and had known her a long time. They had met at Bristol University
where both had explored the intricacies of law and the delights of
the flesh with equal enthusiasm. They had awoken one morning in the
same bed with a man between them, and after he had left they had
discussed how much they enjoyed sex, and that no matter how
successful they might be in their chosen careers, they would never
stint themselves when it came to sexual pleasure.

'I will give
my heart and soul to the pursuit of justice,' Abby had said, 'but
my private life will be my own.'

'The public
won't let you have a private life,' Val had responded.

Abby would not
be beaten however. 'Then I will divide my life. In one I will be
one woman, and a different woman with a different name in my
private life - and ne'er the twain shall meet!'

That agreement
had been common ground between them. Both had been successful. In
disguise and with the utmost discretion, both had maintained their
private lives. And now one would be defending the other in
court.

Abby left
orders with her clerk to inform the Plaintiff's legal
representative that they withdrew the apology and awaited their
response. A court date obviously. It was unavoidable.

She and Val
went off to lunch at a nice little Italian place with pink
tablecloths and pale green walls. It looked a little like an
ice-cream parlour, but the food was good and it was always
packed.

Observant at
all times, a necessity in the double life she led, Abby's eyes
skimmed the lunchtime crowd. 'Well, well!' Her eyes narrowed and
Val's gaze followed hers to where Medina Frassard sat with
Christopher Probert. Medina, sleek in olive green with hints of
gold, looked controlled and slightly aloof from the man opposite
her. Probert, one of Abby's colleagues in chambers, stared into
Medina's eyes, unaware that they were watching him. It was not
difficult to deduce that he was mesmerized by the woman.

Val's eyes
kept drifting in their direction as they sat at their table, and
eventually she asked, 'Is that guy in love with her?'

'Might be. Is
it possible that Medina might be in love with him?'

Val shook her
head and thrust her bottom lip outwards. 'Doubtful. Not powerful or
rich enough.'

'True.'

Abby studied her friend. Their eyes met.
You know I want you to tell me
, said
Abby to herself.
I want you to tell me who
Medina's lover is, but you won't
.

Val raised a
long brown finger, shook her head, and shook the finger in front of
Abby's face.

'Don't look at
me like that, Abby. I can read your thoughts, but I'm not going to
tell you who her current man is.'

'It could
help. Confront her with that information, hint that you might show
it to the media, and she would back down.'

Val's
head-shaking was now emphatic. 'A matter of principle. I dislike
the gutter press more than I do Medina.'

Lance Vector's
telephone call was still fresh in Abby's mind. Her nod of
understanding was abrupt. Their conversation ceased as the waiter
came to take their order.

Lance Vector
did not give up easily. On average, he telephoned every two or
three days. She let him, glad of having someone talk dirty to her
when Stephen was not around. It was not yet their time to meet, and
besides, he was working hard both in his constituency and at his
enquiries into the Swan and Swallow affair. Not that Stephen would
mind her having another man. On the contrary, they had both agreed
that neither would hold the other to any false promise, any
half-meant declaration of love.

Both went on
respecting each other's privacy. Both had made a promise that this
affair would not affect their public lives, or, indeed, their
private ones.

Days, weeks
went by without them meeting. Perhaps it was as well, because when
they did meet, their lovemaking was more demanding, more energetic
than anyone who knew them in their other lives could possibly have
imagined.

After making
love in every position known since the world and sex had begun,
they lay apart, panting, their eyes open or closed, their thoughts
converging just as their bodies had done.

Lust, each
thought as they lay together, was bad enough.

Neither
admitted to the other that they harboured an overpowering wish to
see each other, that one particular look, voice, body. But love
too? Was this what was happening to them?

Being new to
such an emotion, neither could admit to it. They didn't ring each
other like lovers do. They didn't meet for lunch or dinner. They
made set arrangements from one meeting to the next, and kept
strictly to those arrangements. They each clung stubbornly to their
need to lead their own lives, to keep to their own space. It was
enough that they met like that, each using the other as an
instrument for sexual pleasure, a pressure valve on their very
hectic and very public lives.

They had
promised each other that outside the sex, their lives would not
cross - not even at the Red Devil Club when, once a month, Jezebel
Justice would again incite the audience to gasps of ecstasy and
stunned silence. Everything would stay as it was because neither
would admit their emotional attraction to the other.

But Stephen
was worried. After making love, he would presume she was asleep and
lie there beside her, a worried frown on his face and a thoughtful
look in his eyes. Instinctively, she would tense, knowing that he
was burdened and that his burden was making him angry.

As though
being closer to him could help, could make him feel that much more
secure, that much less alone, she curved her body against him, and
stretched her leg across his.

'What's
troubling you?' As she asked him, her fingers traced circles,
squares, and triangles among the drift of hair that clung to his
chest and spilled down his belly.

She was almost
afraid to hear his answer, but also knew she had to relieve the
pressure he was under. Of course, it had occurred to her that
sharing each other's worries was tantamount to admitting that their
relationship was more than just sexual.

He kissed her
forehead, mumbled sorry, and told her that sometimes he thought he
was drowning in parliamentary sleaze, furtiveness, and
cover-ups.

'The Swan and
Swallow case?'

He sighed.
'Old man Rheingold is taking the rap - as the Yanks say. To my
mind, he's afraid to speak out, but soon I'll know more. Soon -
somehow - I'll persuade my witness to meet me and talk.'

'Why is he so
shy, do you think?'

Stephen
shrugged. 'I'm not so sure that he is, it just seems that he picks
the worst possible places to meet, places I don't want to be seen
in.'

'Go in
disguise.'

His face
brightened. 'That is a possibility.'

Infused with
an urge to make him forget his worries, she kissed him, and once
again, their bodies came together. Temporarily, his worries were
buried in the soft folds of her flesh, the tight embrace of her
vaginal muscles.

Theirs was too
great an alliance to crack asunder, too intense a relationship for
the outside world to shatter. But neither could truly say where it
was going, or where it would end up. As though it were a bed of
bright red roses, they revelled in the look, the scent, the
enticing feel of its petals. Neither wished to contemplate its
development which could end in fulfilment, or could end in
oblivion.

At his
request, she went with him to Leys Open Prison to meet Mr
Rheingold.

He was of
Latvian Jewish descent and had come to England with his parents
immediately after the war. Pale eyes gazed from a fat, jowly face.
Loose lips drooped and exposed his bottom teeth. As Probert had
said, he was fat, and his fat fingers moved continuously as he
gazed like a drowning man at the only person who seemed willing to
believe him.

Stephen
introduced Abby.

'I hope you
don't mind her listening in?'

'Pleasure,' he
said, and dipped his head politely in her direction. 'What gives?'
He said upon turning his gaze back to his potential saviour.

'If I can nail
this witness down, I might be able to get your case reopened. I
might also be able to nail the true culprits behind this. Are you
sure you don't know their names?'

Rheingold
shook his head. As his jowls flopped and made a slapping sound,
Abby was reminded of an aged blood hound or, as Probert had said, a
hippopotamus.

'Once the
investment went abroad, the particulars were passed to a middleman
there. Even in this country, I was only given a contact phone
number and occasionally I met a representative of theirs. As I told
you, his name was Mike Smith.'

'Not John?'
Stephen was half-joking.

'No.'
Rheingold shook his head. He was in too deep to notice or care
about jokes. 'No. It was not John. It was Mike.'

Abby leaned a
little further forward. 'What did he look like - this man
Smith?'

Rheingold
shrugged. 'Average man. Tall. Not special.' He paused, frowned and
pinched his lips between his thumb and forefinger. 'Except for the
mole. Yes. A very big mole behind his ear. Left, I think, though I
can't be sure.'

Stephen was
sitting beside her, so she touched his hand, glanced at him
sideways. 'I think I might know who that is. I can't be sure, but I
think it's worth checking out.'

Stephen stared
at her spellbound. 'Who...?' he began.

'Let me look
into it first.'

He nodded.

Following a
telephone call to Miss Simpson, her own pet private investigator,
Abby rang Stephen.

'Oliver
Hardiman has a large mole just behind his ear. He is also something
in the city - a will-o-the-wisp type financier who brokers deals
for people who don't want to get their hands dirty. He's not easy
to get hold of, but I'll see what I can do.'

She didn't
tell Stephen that she'd almost had Oliver pushed on her at the Red
Devil Club by Archie. Neither did she tell him that she'd pushed
him onto Valeria.

She and
Valeria were sharing Val's Jacuzzi when Abby asked her about
Hardiman.

'What was he
like?'

'Pleasant.
Good body, good dick, good lay. Why? Fancy having him yourself? You
with that good looking Stevie baby in tow?'

'No. But I
would like to ask him a few questions about a few million dollars,
pounds, and deutschmarks going astray.'

Val raised her
eyebrows. 'The Swan and Swallow thing? Is he involved?'

'Might be. Did
you get an address for him?'

'Sure. The
Ritz.'

'No home
address? No contact number?'

Val shook her
head. She had short hair but in her private life she wore a long
dark wig, false eyelashes, red lipstick and very high-heeled
shoes.

Abby frowned
thoughtfully. 'No fixed abode. But someone knows where he lives.'
Her face lightened. 'And I think I know just the person.'

She made a
mental note to go along and ask Archie Ringer some pertinent
questions. At present he was abroad, but she would certainly catch
him when he got back.

In the meantime, she and Stephen still had their sex lives.
Totally lost in their longing for each other, she hoped, and he did
too, that everything would go on in the same vein - perhaps until
their passion was tempered either by marriage or old age. But
neither told the other of their hopes and their fears. They drank
of the wine, but had no need to prove whether it was
run-of-the-mill or
premier
cru
.

On an October
day, when the city was rapidly embracing the imminent arrival of a
grey November, everything changed.

The first
thing Abigail knew about it was Stephen phoning, then being cut off
as though someone had grabbed the phone from him. Before she could
phone him back, the newspaper landed on her desk. A stark headline
glared up at her.

The telephone
went down. Coldness churned in her stomach. Two photographs
accompanied the article. One showed a grim-faced but defiant
Stephen. The other showed him in similar garb to that he had worn
on the night she had met him. Wide-eyed, her throat dry, Abigail
scanned the paper.

Neither the
headline nor the article made pretty reading. According to the
report, Stephen had been found dressed as a woman in public
lavatories. According to a man named Carl Candel, he had been
buying his sexual favours.

Even before
she finished rushing from the first paragraph to the last, the
telephone rang.

'I have a call
for you, Miss Corrigan. The man refuses to give me his name, but he
says it's urgent and you'll know who it is.'

At first Lance Vector entered her head.
No
, she said to herself,
don't let it be him. Let it be Stephen!

'Put it
through.'

A small click
signified that the call had been connected. Abigail waited for the
caller to speak.

'You've read
it, I suppose.' It was Stephen. His voice sounded shaky.

'Yes. I have.'
It wasn't easy, but she kept her voice steady. Confidence, she
realized, was something Stephen would need badly.