Part 9 (1/2)

'Does London continue to function without him, then?'

'Just try and behave yourself, Sarah. No one's asking you to enjoy it. But try and behave yourself.'

He said that in the mock-angry tone they teased each other with, but she wasn't fooled.

They drove there, or Mark did, mid-Sat.u.r.day morning. It was dreamtime weather: a great big blue sky with faint tufts of cloud, like a child's drawing of summer. To Sarah, it felt like pa.s.sing through a funfair on the way to the dentist. She kept telling herself that these things are rarely as bad as you expect, but couldn't help suspecting she invalidated that premise by relying on it. If she wasn't expecting it to be quite so bad any more, it would probably turn out worse.

The village was one of the modern kind whose original inhabitants have grown old and died, leaving their houses in the hands of BBC executives. And the Inchons' weekend cottage, one in a row of similar detached dwellings, had 'weekend cottage' written all over it; there was just no way you were looking at anything else. Not that it had an air of neglect: quite the opposite. The whitewash on the walls seemed fresh; the bedspread-sized garden was Britain-in-Bloom standard. But when Sarah tried to conjure an image of Gerard in overalls with a bucket, or Gerard on his knees with a trowel, it faded almost immediately, to be replaced by one of Gerard handing a wodge of money to a man with overalls, a bucket, etc. It was too perfect, and Gerard too much the townie to have made it so. That was what Sarah decided.

Inside, the story was the same: an interior designer had looked up 'rustic', then thrown a lot of money at it. The stone floor presumably matched that of every other cottage in the row, but Sarah doubted there were many more Bokharas thrown casually on top of them, even round here. Eveything gleamed, and a faint smell of polish tainted the air. A wooden staircase looked both old and new at once; a triumphant marriage of conservation and conspicuous consumption, with what appeared to be a mouse carved into the handrail, in imitation, Sarah was pretty sure, of someone famous. In the nook below, on a purpose-built stand, sat a compact disc deck with a.s.sociated gadgetry; next to this was a row of bookshelves holding neatly labelled videos. Through a diamond-shaped window on the far wall, an untidy countryside mocked these civilized arrangements: the crystal decanter perched smugly in an alcove; the scatter of pristine lifestyle magazines on the gla.s.s-topped coffee table. For no reason she could positively pin down, Sarah found herself recalling Britt Ekland on Desert Island Discs; how, when asked for her favourite book, the former celebrity explained that she never got much time for reading, and would just like a few magazines please. It was the nearest Sarah had come to throwing a radio through a window. Meanwhile Inchon, in brown cords and white sweater despite the weather, played Mein Host: a triumph of method acting. She'd not have been surprised if he'd said Welcome To Our Humble Abode, or practised a sweeping bow as he'd ushered them in.

What he was in fact saying was, 'You're here, you're here. How about a drink?'

It wasn't the words or the manner; they had nothing to do with it. But afterwards she pinpointed that as the moment she decided it had been Gerard Inchon who planted the bomb that blew the Singleton house away.

III.

Asking Mark to remind her what the Trophy Wife was called would have been asking for it: divine inspiration descended in time. The name was Paula and, unlike her husband, she was making no concessions to her environment; her lilac number, matching skirt and jacket, could have graced a West End opening without alteration. So could her air of boredom. But this, like the suit, didn't seem to have been put on for their benefit: a weekend in the country, Sarah reflected, was one of those relative terms. Under different circ.u.mstances, she'd have been looking forward to it. For Paula, it looked like a phrase followed by With No Hope Of Parole, in block capitals.

Still, she didn't labour the point; positively unwound, in fact, once Sarah and Mark had accepted Gerard's offer of drinks. Or spoke, anyway. 'Did you have a good journey?'

'Fine, thanks,' Mark said. 'Absolutely no . . . problem.'

It was like listening to people remembering a phrase book they'd glanced at. A suspicious mind would have a.s.sumed they were having an affair.

But Sarah's suspicious mind was otherwise occupied at that moment; was trying desperately to send the right signals to her body, her limbs. Act natural. Smile. Talk about the weather. Don't, for instance, mention Gerard turning up late the night of the explosion, leaving his briefcase in the car. (His briefcase? At a dinner party?) Don't ask why he'd been so sure it was a bomb. Don't ask where he keeps his gun collection. Just take, which she now did, the proffered c.o.c.ktail and smile, act natural, talk about the weather.

'Brilliant piece of suns.h.i.+ne.'

'Splendid.'

'Great summer in fact.'

'Greenhouse effect.'

'More power to it.'

'Too hot, really.'

'Well, yes, I'd say so.'

'They say it'll break soon.'

'But they always say that,' concluded Gerard, 'don't they?'

Mark fetched their bags, and Gerard showed them the guestroom. It was more of the same: an ill.u.s.tration from a catalogue; a backdrop to a tweed collection. The double bed had a bolster, and through the window sheep posed placidly beneath a spreading chestnut tree, probably. Gerard showed them how the wardrobe worked: it had a sliding door. Left to themselves, she and Mark would have cracked this fairly soonish. You could take the host business too far, she thought, but you couldn't fault his geniality.

Except you had to see it as an act. If you had decided he was responsible for the deaths of a young widow and her curiously extant husband, and, by logical extension, the kidnapping or at any rate disappearing of their surviving daughter, you had to take this newly jovial front with a quarryload of salt. Sarah had, of course, no evidence. For the moment, though, she wouldn't let that get in the way; with a weekend on the premises to go, she could have him bang to rights by Monday.

'Not too shabby,' Mark said, once Gerard had left them.

'Mmm?'

'All this.' He waved a hand: the room, the cottage, the country. He was desperate for her to be pleased, she realized; for the stage to be suitable for a convincing performance of enjoyment. So they could both pretend, even in front of each other, that it was brilliant they were here. Maybe she should tell him, she thought as she stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek, that the entertainment potential in this weekend had increased by a factor of ten. On the other hand, though, she definitely shouldn't.

'All right?' he asked anxiously.

'Fine. Everything's fine.' And they went downstairs.

It was hard getting a handle on Gerard in his home environment. It was as if the slate had been wiped clean, and he was determined not to acknowledge in any way that their first encounter had been anything but immensely cordial. He did mention the explosion once, but addressed his question to Mark while Sarah was asking Paula something interesting about neighbours, and couldn't b.u.t.t in to prolong the dialogue.

'Anything ever come of that incident? Developments?'

'Not that I know of.'

'Hmph. Trouble with the police, they're so busy bending over backwards to prove they're not racist thugs, they never get anything done. It's like everything else, you want results, go private.' He glanced at Sarah as he said this, but she was too busy being fascinated by Paula to respond. Something about a TV star three doors away. His last party started on Friday and went on till Monday morning!

One of the non-bomb-related puzzles that had been exercising Sarah, why there was no activity in the kitchen, was solved when Gerard explained he'd booked a table at the local pub for lunch. Booked, mind. Not one of those pub lunches where you just turn up. Within a few minutes of that, they were in The Feathers, a pub that was everything the rest of the village promised, having uniformed staff, a wide choice of real ale and expensive food. Sarah, though, was on her best behaviour. So, it seemed, was Gerard. When he spoke, she listened and laughed; when she spoke he attended as if expecting questions later. Mostly Mark did the talking, though, while Paula picked at her food and didn't offer much, beyond adding the odd name to her list of the village alumni. Sarah thought she'd be happier in Planet Hollywood. Even Gerard threw her odd glances, as if wis.h.i.+ng she'd try harder.

After the garlic bread, the lasagne, the summer pudding, Gerard suggested a walk. 'Lovely walks round here, aren't there, darling?'

Paula shrugged.

'Woods?' asked Mark, to show he knew a thing or two about the countryside.

'I wouldn't be at all surprised.'

They had a brief altercation about the bill which Gerard won, depending on how you looked at it, then set off to check out the surrounding countryside. A footpath took them beyond the village limits in a very short while. Here, Sarah expected segregation to set in: Gerard would stride on with Mark and discuss manly things, while she was left to dredge up enough small talk to keep Paula from slipping into a coma. In the event she was quite wrong, soon finding herself with Gerard, some fifty yards behind their spouses. Detective finds herself alone with suspect. What do they talk about? The weather.

'Wonderful, isn't it?'

'What is?'

'Good clean air,' he said.

'You're not really a country boy, are you, Gerard?'

'I wouldn't say that. I'm from yeoman stock. Generations back, my family were farmers.'

'Generations back everybody's family were farmers.'

'Funny, isn't it? Everybody rat-racing in the city, struggling to make their pile, so they can get back where their ancestors sweated. Maybe we should all have stayed where we were in the first place.'

'Would you have liked that?'

'Of course not. This is the weekend talking. It's not real life.'

'Which is?'

'Compet.i.tion. Struggle. The survival of the smartest.'