Part 16 (1/2)

It would have been fair enough with Kale and Cooper, but both were popular with the public and her feeling was that the nation was collectively rooting for the New Hope expeditionaries. They were intrepid and adventurous. They were knowledgeable and fearless and were widely admired as such. She had written her features about them with that supposition in mind.

Almost as if reading her thoughts, McIntyre approached her. He beamed. He seemed not so much happy as exultant.

'Seeing them a.s.sembled like this makes me realise what a grand job you've done, Lucy, and just how hard you've worked on this. You deserve to be congratulated.'

'Thanks. I've never enjoyed working on a series more.'

McIntyre sipped champagne. His eyes roamed the room but she had his attention. 'Do you say that out of vanity?'

'It's nice to get the prominent by-lines and have an audience of millions reading and discussing your stuff. But I think it's because I'm so sold on the story myself. I've been fascinated by the mystery since I was a child. Rather like you, I imagine.'

His eyes swivelled to meet hers. They narrowed. 'Think we'll solve the mystery?'

To her own surprise, she realised it was not a question to which she had given sufficient thought. She had not really considered it, since doing so briefly prior to her initial phone interview with Jane Chambers and their discussion of the epidemic theory.

'I do,' she said. And suddenly, she knew with certainty that she really did. 'I don't see how we can fail.'

'Frankly, neither do I,' he said. 'You'll be there when the moment of revelation occurs. You will witness history.'

'You won't be there yourself, Mr McIntyre?'

'Wouldn't wish to steal someone else's glory,' he said, 'though I shall visit, once the mystery is irrefutably solved.'

He treated her to a courtly bow and moved away. And Lucy wondered which of the competing theories her paper's proprietor believed would finally prove correct. He was rumoured to be close to Karl Cooper. Cooper denied it, but Carrick's gossip was almost always factually reliable.

Despite the alleged warmth of this relations.h.i.+p, she couldn't really see a man as hard headed as Alexander McIntyre believing in abduction by little green men equipped with those obligatory a.n.a.l probes. Nor could she see him going for demonic possession, even if he did have a Catholic background.

He had personally wooed Degrelle after speaking to his friend the Cardinal. But Degrelle's partic.i.p.ation was a stunt, really. It was a hyped-up inclusion based on the notion that people believed what they saw when they watched priests incanting stuff in horror movies. They were taking Degrelle and his ritual and his holy water and candles because as Carrick had rightly said, they couldn't do otherwise and claim to be covering all the possibilities.

Perhaps McIntyre just kept an open mind as to how the vanis.h.i.+ng had been accomplished. That was the sensible thing to do. Cooper and Jane were the most strident theorists and at least one of them was going to be proven spectacularly wrong.

Lucy thought that between the two of them, the expert left looking foolish would be Karl Cooper. That was certainly what she hoped. The journalist in her should have wanted the biggest story, and alien abduction was a much bigger deal than a deadly outbreak of disease, even if the disease was still virulent and contagious on the island. But for her, the New Hope expedition had all become rather more personal than professional. She despised Cooper wholly and she liked Jane a lot.

She saw Carrick, standing by himself, staring into his champagne c.o.c.ktail with unfocussed eyes over by the main entrance. Or exit, she thought, thinking that doors worked both ways in her capricious trade and that James needed to shape up pretty soon or Marsden would be s.h.i.+pping him out.

That was the sort of mixing of metaphors that the old James would have celebrated gleefully. But the new James didn't look in the mood at all for wordplay on the subject of dismissal. Lucy wondered could he be talked round. Loyalty obliged her to try so she walked across to where he stood.

'I'd offer you a penny for them,' she said, 'but that would be a grossly inflated price.'

He smiled, or tried to. The result was not a success. 'I'm thinking of resigning, Lucy.'

'You're kidding me.'

'I'm not. I have two kids, a wife with a heavy shopping habit, a large mortgage and negligible savings. I also have a really terrible feeling about this whole misguided adventure.'

'Why do you think it misguided?'

'I don't know. I mean I don't know specifically. I just know that the thought of getting on that plane tomorrow morning fills me with dread. There's no other word. I'm not just not looking forward to this. I'm actually dreading it.'

'Are we discussing a premonition?'

Carrick blew out air. 'I think it might be.'

'Premonitions are surely Alice Lang's department,' Lucy said.

'No, they're not. She's psychic. But she sees the past, not the future.'

A waiter came by bearing a tray of tiny biscuits piled with caviar and soured cream. 'The condemned man ate a heart repast,' Carrick said. But he shook his head and waved the man away without taking anything from the tray.

'I've never seen you like this.'

'I've never been like this, not in public.'

'Don't do what you're thinking of doing. Don't throw your career away, James. Not over the prospect of a few windswept weeks off the Scottish coast. It'll be tolerable. It might even offer moments of fun. The New Hope mystery will get nailed for good and all and a delirious McIntyre will sanction generous bonuses all round.'

Carrick tried to smile again, his second unsuccessful attempt. 'If you sold mobile phones for a living,' he said, 'you'd starve to death.'

'I'm not the one about to jack in my job.'

'Which you'll probably inherit, yet you're trying to convince me to keep. You're a very nice person, Lucy. You're both talented and good. I don't think I've told you that often enough. I might never have said it, in fact. There's a lot of things I should've said but never did.'

'You're sounding like a suicide note.'

'There are other jobs. I'm not unemployable.'

'When are you thinking of doing it?'

'No time like the present,' Carrick said.

'Sleep on it. Please just sleep on it. It won't be the end of the world if you're a no show at the airport. Give yourself between now and tomorrow morning. You might see things completely differently in daylight, James.'

He frowned. He leaned forward and kissed Lucy tenderly on the cheek. There was nothing s.e.xual in the gesture. It was a spontaneous display of fondness and respect and she took it as the compliment it was. 'Thank you,' he said. 'Thank you, Lucy. I'll do as you suggest.'

Kale was talking to Degrelle, who looked only slightly incredulous at whatever it was he was listening to. Jane was talking to La.s.siter and seemed fascinated by whatever it was he was saying to her. McIntyre was involved in a fairly intense looking conversation with Alice Lang, someone for whom his body language suggested he had a wary sort of respect. Lucy felt a tap on the shoulder and turned to face Karl Cooper, smiling his stellar smile, his eyes gravitated firmly towards the cleavage her Empire style dress revealed.

'You don't normally dress like that.'

'I'm dressed for the occasion.'

'Jeans and a leather jacket are more your style. And that Zippo lighter for your American cigarettes and the Harley Davidson, of course. Practically trade marks.'

'The bike was a Triumph Bonneville and I sold it last year. I don't court celebrity, Mr Cooper.'

'Karl, please,' he said. 'You might not court celebrity, but thanks to the expedition, you have a high public profile. Lucy Church is practically a household name.'

She nodded. She knew what his inference was. Thanks to people like me, was his unspoken coda. It was undeniably true. She was becoming famous, or at least sort of famous, by a.s.sociation. 'Do you think I should feel grateful?'

'I think you should agree to have dinner with me.'

'Share dinner for two, on New Hope Island?' She laughed. She was incredulous. 'Boil in the bag over a Primus stove?'