Part 9 (2/2)

'And the devil take the rest.'

'You think I'm a capitalist monster, don't you?'

'It crossed my mind.'

Gerard stopped to examine the view. She imagined the checklist in his head: sheep, yes; fields, yes; trees, yes. This was the country, no question. He nodded in quiet satisfaction and said, 'When I meet people like those friends of yours, the ones with rather bizarre names, I must admit I play up to their expectations. They think wealth goes hand in hand with obnoxious att.i.tudes.'

'So that was a game.'

'No. But it's not the whole story, either.'

'Underneath it all,' Sarah said, 'you're just another raging lefty.'

'That's the trouble with you middle-cla.s.s socialist types.' He seemed to have had enough of the view now, and together they walked on. 'You think you've the monopoly on compa.s.sion.'

'Whereas you regard it as a free market.'

'Oh very neat, yes. A market in which there's no room for random acts of senseless generosity, shall we say.'

'Why not?' Sarah said. 'It sounds like we've said it before.'

He chuckled at that. Annoying Gerard Inchon was an uphill task. No doubt he was aware just how irritating this was.

For all that, the weekend Gerard wasn't what she'd expected. There was something to his manner and the country clothes, the appreciative once-overs he gave the scenery that told her he was playing a part, for his own benefit as much as hers. He wanted to be at home here but wasn't quite making the grade, and what surprised her wasn't so much this c.h.i.n.k in his armour she'd never met a man who didn't come with one of those as her own response to it: a mild disappointment at his obvious vulnerability.

. . . And there she went again, treating it all like a giant game. Though the players in this case were people, and some of them were dead.

'It doesn't bother you, though,' she said after a bit, 'just to write some people off?'

See if he appreciates the subtlety of that.

'How do you mean?'

'Well, my friend Rufus.' My friend was a stretch, but he wasn't to know that. 'You decided he was a dead loss in no time flat. What gives you the right to do that?'

'The same thing that lets me get away with it. He's spineless, Sarah. Fond as you so obviously are of his retro missus, you have to admit friend Rufey is a bit lacking in what, in other company, I'd have to call b.a.l.l.s.'

'And that's what makes a man?'

'I'd call it a defining characteristic.'

'Not everybody gets the same chances in life.'

'It would be foolish to deny it. But not everybody makes use of the ones they get.'

'He was an orphan.'

'He wasn't the only one.' Gerard stopped abruptly, as if he'd said more than he'd meant to, and used a stick he'd acquired to point at a speck in the sky. 'What's that, do you think?'

'A bird?' Sarah ventured. 'Mark's the expert.'

'Kestrel, probably. Or a hawk. Or a buzzard.'

Sarah surveyed once more the green sweep of landscape, receiving from it this time a sense of something large and impressive to which she could not readily put a name: possibly nature exerting its pressure; something, anyway, she didn't feel in the city. 'It's very beautiful,' she said, and because it sounded to her own ear as if the words had come out grudgingly, said it again. 'Beautiful. What's it like in the winter?'

'G.o.d knows.'

The others were waiting at a stile, and they swapped partners as if the move had been ch.o.r.eographed in advance. Sarah spent the rest of the walk communing, largely in silence, with Paula, reflecting the while on her conversation with Gerard. From which she had learned precisely nothing. So the man was an orphan, or that's what he'd implied: so what? As a clue, this ranked poorly against the tortured confession she might have extracted. The most interesting thing he'd said, he'd said to Mark: his comment about going private when investigating crime. Which could mean he knew about Joe, which in turn meant he was having her watched. You might come down with a bad dose of paranoia in this business. Hadn't Joe said he never spoke freely over the phone?

And Paula never spoke freely anywhere, or so Sarah was finding. 'How long have you owned the cottage?'

'About a year.'

'And do you come here . . . often?' Her voice trailing away.

'Whenever Gerard feels like it.'

From up ahead, the odd word came wafting back: parts of that complicated vocabulary people never use, but money thrives on. Interim pre-tax profits. Commercial reserves. They spoke of entire nations as if other races marched ahead with a single thought in mind: The Germans always this. The j.a.panese never that. As if every other country in the world had a fixed agenda, while Jolly Old Blighty b.u.mbled along, full of people who didn't give a toss. That last part, in fact, felt pretty true to Sarah's experience, but there were probably Wigwams and Rufuses in every country in the world.

'And do you like it?'

But Paula just looked at her.

When they got back to the cottage it quickly became apparent that the fresh air and exercise element of the country weekend was officially at a close, and the drinking far too much aspect just breaking open. Gerard uncorked several bottles of wine at once, some to breathe, some not to get the chance, and for the next few hours time seemed to stand still for long stretches, then gallop to catch up at unexpected moments. Sarah kept a stern eye on her gla.s.s at first, until the effort of remembering her suspicions while pretending to enjoy herself started to weigh too heavily to allow for other considerations. Perhaps she was only pretending to suspect, and genuinely enjoying herself. Gerard kept up a flow of jokes which grew progressively raunchier as the afternoon wore off; Mark laughed a lot and it struck her as an unfamiliar sound. And Paula drank steadily and spoke about life in London, and where the best places to be seen were, and what made them the best places. She was starting to sound like a Muppet. When Sarah giggled at the wrong moment she found she couldn't stop. 'Sorry.' Gerard said something she didn't catch, and next moment Mark was bending over her, closer to her than he'd been since they'd last had s.e.x. 'I think you're quite drunk, Sarah.' I think we all are, she wanted to tell him, but the effort was beyond her so she meekly allowed him to lead her upstairs instead, where she woke several hours later in a very dark room, with her head screwed on too tight and a mouth so dry she must have been force-fed crackers in her sleep.

She found the loo then cleaned herself up a bit. The face in the mirror was red-eyed, very pale-skinned: not a brilliant advert for your husband's career she thought, before remembering she didn't give a sod about Mark's career, and it wasn't her fault she'd got drunk anyway. When she came out it was to the sound of a minor earthquake in the adjoining room, and since its light was on and the door open she stuck her head round to find a fully clothed Paula on the bed, snoring to wake the dead. The survivor of a thousand city nights wasn't looking too hot. Probably the country air. Feeling less a casualty for having witnessed another crash, she went downstairs in search of moving bodies.

Mark's was not among them. Draped over the sofa, head back, mouth open, he had a was.h.i.+ng-up bowl balanced on his knees, which Sarah's long-term experience indicated was both prudent and not his own idea. The main light was off, and for one moment his face seemed to flicker in the dark, as if she were catching a glimpse of him from a pa.s.sing train. But the movement was illusory; the darting shadows the TV. Gerard Inchon was watching a movie.

'Cary Grant,' she said, more to announce her presence than to let him know who he was watching. Buried in an armchair, he hadn't looked round as she came down, and for a moment she thought he was asleep. But at last he turned his big head lazily round and nodded as if he'd been expecting her.

'Archie Leach,' he replied.

'Archie Leach was a n.o.body,' she said. 'Cary Grant was a star.' Why did she feel the need to duel with this man?

Whyever, he didn't join in. 'Sit,' he said. 'Have a drink.' He waved at an array of wine bottles, most of them empty. 'I can open another,' he added, reaching the same conclusion.

'Water'll do, thanks.'

'We've got some of that. I think we keep it in the tap.'

'I'll find it.'

There were more empty bottles on the kitchen table, forcing Sarah to suppress a shudder as she found a gla.s.s, poured some water, drank it, poured some more. She couldn't remember an afternoon when she'd drunk this much. Nor wished to. The afternoon anyway was long over: the kitchen clock said 11.20, and through the back window dark trees waved at her. She could make out her own reflection too. It wasn't doing her any favours.

Back in the sitting room Cary Grant was climbing a flight of stairs, carrying a gla.s.s of milk with a light bulb in it. Gerard seemed engrossed but beckoned her to sit, pointing at a tray of sandwiches somebody had fixed up at some point. Suddenly ravenous, Sarah ate four, while on the screen in front of them an improbably happy ending imposed itself on what had been, up to that point, a good film. When the urge came to tell the audience Everything is going to be all right, it was definitely time to pack it in.

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