The Night Manager (62 page)

He was somewhere near Baker Street, and London had become an Arab town. In the neon-lit windows of small hotels, dark-eyed men stood about in desultory groups, fidgeting their beads and gesticulating to each other while the children played with their new train sets and veiled women spoke among themselves. Between the hotels stood the private hospitals, and at the steps of one of these Palfrey paused in the lighted entrance, perhaps wondering whether to admit himself and then, deciding not, walked on.

He wore no coat or hat, he carried no umbrella. A cab slowed as it went past him, but the distraction in Palfrey's face could not be appealed to. He was like a man who had mislaid something essential to his purposes: his car perhaps--which street had he left it in?--his wife, his woman--where had they arranged to meet? Once, he patted the pockets of his sodden jacket, for keys or cigarettes or money. Once, he went into a pub that was about to close, put a five-pound note on the bar and drank a double Scotch without water and left, forgetting his change and muttering the word "Apostoll" out loud--though the only witness to testify to this afterwards was a theological student, who thought he was declaring himself an apostate. The street had him again, and he pursued his quest, looking at everything yet somehow rejecting it--no, you're not, the place, not here, not here. An old whore with dyed blond hair called at him good-humouredly from a doorway, but he shook his head--not you either. Another pub had him, just as the barman was calling for last orders.

"Fellow called Pine," Palfrey told a man to whom he raised his glass in a distracted toast. "Very much in love." The man silently drank with him because he thought Palfrey looked a bit cut up. Somebody must have pinched his girl, he thought. A little runt like him, no wonder.

Palfrey chose the island, a triangle of raised pavement with a railing round it that seemed to be uncertain whether its job was to fence people in or fence them out. But the island was still not what he had been looking for, apparently, perhaps more some kind of vantage point or a familiar landmark.

And he didn't enter the protection of the railing. He did what kids do in the playground, said another witness: he put his heels on the outside curb and hooked his arms behind him over the railing, so that for a thoughtful while he seemed to be attached to the outside of a moving roundabout that wasn't moving, while he watched the empty late-night double-decker buses racing past him in their hurry to get home.

Finally, like someone who has got his bearings, he straightened himself up and put back his rather wasted shoulders until he resembled an old soldier on Remembrance Day, chose a particularly fast oncoming bus, and threw himself under it.

And really on that particular stretch of road, at that time of night, and the streets like a skating rink from the pouring rain, there was absolutely nothing the poor driver could do. And Palfrey would have been the last to blame him.

A will, handwritten but legally phrased, if somewhat battered, was found in Palfrey's pocket. It forgave all debts and appointed Goodhew his executor.

TWENTY-NINE

The Iron Pasha, 1,500 tons, 250 feet long, steel-built by Headship of Holland in 1987 to the specifications of her present owner, interior by Lavinci of Rome, powered by two 2,000-horsepower MWM diesel engines and equipped with Vosper stabilisers, Inmarsat satellite-telecommunications-systems radar, including an anti-collision set and Radar Watch--not to mention fax, telex, a dozen cases of Dom Perignon and a live holly tree in a tub in anticipation of the Christmas festivities--sailed out of Nelson's Dockyard, English Harbour, Antigua, the Antilles, on the morning tide, bound for her winter cruise of the Windward and Grenadine islands, and ultimately, by way of the islands of Blanquilla, Orchila and Bonaire, for Curaçao.

A smattering of the better names and faces from Antigua's fashionable St. James's Club had assembled at the dockside to see her off, and there was much sounding of air horns and ships' whistles as the ever-popular international entrepreneur, Mr. Dicky Onslow Roper and his elegantly attired guests stood astern of the departing vessel, waving their farewells to cries of "Godspeed" and "Have a simply marvellous time, Dicky, you've deserved it" from the shore. Mr. Roper's personal pennant, portraying a glittering crystal, fluttered from the mainmast. Society-watchers were gratified to observe such familiar favourites of the jet set as Lord (Sandy to his intimates) Langbourne on the arm of his wife, Caroline, thus discounting rumours of a breakup, and the exquisite Miss Jemima (Jed to her friends) Marshall, Mr. Roper's constant companion since more than a year and renowned hostess of the Roper Xanadu in the Exumas.

The other sixteen guests constituted a carefully selected company of international makers and shakers and included such social heavyweights as Petros (Patty) Kaloumenos, who had recently attempted to purchase the island of Spetsai from the Greek government, Bunny Saltlake, the American soup heiress, Gerry Sandown, the British racing driver, and his French wife, and the American film producer Marcel Heist, whose own yacht, the Marceline, was presently under construction in Bremerhaven. No children were of the company.

Guests who had never sailed on the Pasha before were likely to spend their first days swooning over her luxurious appointments: her eight staterooms, all with king-sized beds, hi-fi, telephone, colour television, Redoute prints and historic panelling; her softly lit Edwardian salon in red plush, with antique gaming table and eighteenth-century bronze heads, each in its domed recess of solid walnut; her maple dining room, with sylvan paintings after Watteau; her pool, Jacuzzi and solarium; her Italian afterdeck for informal dining.

Of Mr. Derek Thomas of New Zealand, however, the gossip columnists wrote nothing at all. He featured on no Ironbrand public relations handout. He was not on deck waving to the friends onshore. He was not at dinner, delighting his companions with his sensitive conversation. He was in the Pasha's nearest thing to Herr Meister's fine-wine cellar, chained and gagged and lying in the dark, in a bloody solitude relieved by visits from Major Corkoran and his assistants.

The combined strength of the Pasha's crew and staff was twenty, including captain, mate, engineer, assistant engineer, a chef for the guests and a chef for the crew, a head stewardess and housekeeper, four deckhands and a ship's purser. The company also included a pilot for the helicopter and another for the seaplane. The security team was augmented by the two German-Argentineans who had flown with Jed and Corkoran from Miami and, like the ship it protected, was lavishly equipped. The tradition of piracy in that region is by no means extinct, and the ship's arsenal was capable of sustaining a prolonged firefight at sea, deterring marauding aircraft or sinking a hostile vessel venturing alongside. It was stored in the forward hold, where the security team also had its quarters, behind a seaproof steel door that in turn was protected by a grille. Was that where Jonathan was being kept? After three days at sea, such was Jed's distraught conviction. But when she asked Roper he seemed not to hear her, and when she asked Corkoran he threw up his chin and made a stern frown.

"Stormy waters, old love," said Corkoran through set lips. "Be seen not heard, my advice. Bed and board and a low profile. Safer for all. Don't quote me."

The transformation she had observed in Corkoran was by now complete. A ratlike intensity had replaced his former sloth. He smiled seldom and issued snappish orders at male members of the crew, whether they were plain or pretty. He had pinned a row of medal ribbons to his mildewed dinner jacket and was given to grandiose soliloquies about world problems whenever Roper was not there to shut him up.

The day of Jed's arrival in Antigua was the worst in her life. She had had plenty of other worst days till now--her Catholic guilt had supplied her with a whole bunch. There had been the day the mother superior marched into the dormitory and told her to pack her things, her taxi was waiting at the door. That was the same day her father ordered her to go to her bedroom while he took priestly advice on how to handle a sixteen-year-old virgin whore caught stark naked in the potting shed with a village boy doing his unsuccessful best to deflower her. There had been the day in Hammersmith when two boys she had refused to sleep with had got drunk and decided to make common cause, taking it in turns to hold her down while the other raped her. And there had been the too-wild days in Paris before she stepped over the sleeping bodies, straight into Dicky Roper's arms. But the day she boarded the Pasha in English Harbour, Antigua, had knocked the others off the scoreboard.

On the plane, she had managed to ignore Corkoran's veiled insults by escaping into her magazines. At Antigua airport he had thrust his hand officiously under her arm, and when she tried to shake free he had clutched her in a clawlike grip while two blond boys trod on her heels. In the limousine, Corkoran rode up front and the boys sat too close either side of her. And as she climbed the Pasha's gangway, all three made a phalanx round her, no doubt to demonstrate to Roper--if he was watching--that they were obeying orders.

Frog-marched to the door of the state apartments, she was obliged to wait while Corkoran knocked.

"Who is it?" Roper demanded from within.

"A Miss Marshall, Chief. Safe and moderately sound."

"Show her in, Corks."

"With luggage, Chief, or was it without?"

"With."

She stepped inside and saw Roper sitting at the desk with his back to her. And he remained there, still with his back to her, while a steward parked her luggage in the bedroom and withdrew. He was reading something, checking it with a pen as he went along. A contract, a whatever. She waited for him to finish, or put it down and turn to her. Even get up. He didn't.

He reached the end of the page, scribbled something--she thought his initials--then passed the next page and went on reading. It was a thick, typed document, blue, with a red ribbon and a red-ruled margin. There were quite a few pages to go. He's writing his will, she decided. And to my former mistress Jed I leave absolutely sod all....

He was wearing his navy blue tailored silk dressing gown with rolled collar and crimson piping, and usually, when he put it on, it meant either that they were about to make love, or just had. While he read he occasionally shifted the angle of his shoulders inside it, as if he sensed she was admiring them. He had always been proud of his shoulders. She was still standing.

She was six feet from him. She was wearing jeans and a knit vest and several gold necklaces. He liked her to wear gold. The carpet was puce and brand-new. Very expensive, very deep.

They had chosen it together from samples, in front of the fire at Crystal. Jonathan had lent his advice. This was the first time she had seen it in position.

"Am I disturbing you?" she asked, when he had still not turned his head.

"Hardly at all," he replied, while his head remained bowed over the papers.

She sat on the edge of a chair, clutching her tapestry bag on her lap. There was such over-control in his body, and such harnessed tension in his voice, that she presumed that at any moment he was going to get up and hit her, probably all in one movement: a spring and a sweeping backhand swipe that would knock her into the middle of next week. She'd once had an Italian boy who'd done that to her as a punishment for being witty. The punch had carried her clean across the room. It should have felled her outright, but her riding balance helped her, and as soon as she had grabbed her things from the bedroom, she let the punch carry her out of the house.

"I told them lobster," Roper said, as he again initialled something on the document before him. "Reckoned you were owed one after Corky's little number at Enzo's. Lobster all right for you?" She didn't answer.

"Chaps tell me you've been having a bit of a tumble with Brother Thomas. Likee? Real name's Pine, by the way. Jonathan to you."

"Where is he?"

"Thought you'd ask that." Turn a page. Raise an arm. Fuss with the half-lens reading glasses. "Been going on long, has it? Quickies in the summerhouse? Knickers off in the woods? Bloody good at it, both of you, I must say. All those staff around. I'm not stupid either. Didn't spot a thing."

"If they're telling you I slept with Jonathan, I didn't."

"Nobody said much about sleep."

"We are not lovers."

She had said the same to the mother superior, she remembered, but it hadn't cut much ice. Roper, paused at his reading, still didn't turn his head.

"So what are you?" he asked. "If not lovers, what?"

We're lovers, she conceded stupidly. It made not one whit of difference whether they were physical lovers or some other. Her love for Jonathan and her betrayal of Roper were accomplished facts. The rest, as in the potting shed, was technical. "Where is he?" she demanded.

Too busy reading. A shift of the shoulders as we amend something with our six-foot-long Mont Blanc. "Is he on the boat?"

A sculptured stillness now, her father's pensive silence. But father was afraid the world was going to the devil and, by Jove, hadn't the least idea how to stop it. Whereas Roper was helping it on its way.

"Says he did it all by himself," Roper said. "That true? Jed didn't do any of it. Pine's the baddie, Pine did it all. Jed's snow white. Too thick to know what she's about, anyway. End of statement for the press. All his own work."

"What work?"

Roper shoved his pen aside and stood, still contriving not to look at her. He crossed the room to the panelled wall and pressed a button. The electric doors of the drinks cupboard rolled back. He opened the refrigerator, fished out a bottle of the Dom, uncorked it and filled himself a glass. Then, as a kind of compromise between looking at her and not, he spoke to her reflection in the mirrored interior of the cupboard, what he could see of it between a row of wine bottles and the vermouths and Camparis.

"Want some?" he asked, almost tenderly, lifting the bottle of Dom and offering it to her reflection.

"What work? What's he supposed to have done?"