In The Presence Of The Enemy (24 page)

Luxford nodded sharply. He didn’t seem the least offended. He said, “Of course. I should have thought to give him a sample the other night. You’re sure you’re all right?”

She nodded and offered what she hoped was a convincing smile. Luxford got to his feet. Stone, she saw, had retreated to a conference table at the far side of the offi ce. He’d pulled out a chair and sunk into it. His head was in his hands.

Luxford took a sheet of paper and began to write. The office door opened. The uniformed guard said, “Mr. Luxford? A problem?”

Luxford looked up. He took a moment to evaluate Stone before he said, “Stay close by, Jerry. I’ll let you know if I need you.” The guard disappeared. Luxford said to Stone, “I ought to have you ejected from the building.

And I will—believe me—if you aren’t prepared to listen.”

Stone didn’t raise his head. “I’ll listen.”

“Then hear me. Someone has Charlotte.

Someone’s threatened her life. Someone wants the truth about Evelyn, about me. I don’t know who that someone is and I don’t know why he’s waited till now to use the thumbscrews. But the fact is he’s doing it. We can either cooperate, bring in the police, or call his bluff. Which, I may tell you, I don’t believe is a bluff in the first place. So you have two options as I see it, Stone. Either go home and convince your wife that this situation is deadly serious, or play the game her way and live with the consequences. I’ve done what I can.”

Stone said dully, “Into your hands.” He gave a muted, sardonic laugh.

“What?”

“I’ve played right into your hands.” He raised his head. “Haven’t I?”

Luxford’s expression was incredulous.

Deborah said, “Mr. Stone, surely you see that—”

“Don’t bother,” Luxford interposed. “He’s found his villain. They both have. Save your breath.”

He turned his attention to the padded envelope he’d been holding. It was stapled shut, and he ripped it open. He said, “We have nothing more to say, Mr. Stone. Can you see yourself out or do you need assistance?” He upended the envelope without waiting for a response. He stared at its contents. Deborah saw him swallow.

She got to her feet, rather unsteadily, and said, “Mr. Luxford?” and then, “No. Don’t touch it,” when she saw what lay among the rest of his mail.

It was a small tape recorder.

RODNEY ARONSON KEPT ONE EYE
on his computer screen and the other on Luxford’s office door, no mean feat since his own offi ce was on the other side of the newsroom from Luxford’s and the intervening space was taken up by a score of desks, fi ling cabinets, computer terminals, and the constantly moving bodies of
The Source
journalists. The rest of the news meeting members had drifted off to other responsibilities once Luxford had postponed the conference for an hour. If they found the editor’s order for a delay a curiosity, none of them had mentioned it.

But Rodney had lingered. He’d got a good look at the face of the man who’d been accompanying Luxford, and there was something about his expression of barely con-trolled hostility that suggested to Rodney that he hang about Miss Wallace’s compulsively neat cubbyhole on the off chance something of interest occurred.

Something
had
occurred, but when Rodney responded to the sound of raised voices and crashing bodies by throwing open the editor’s office door in a display of his deep and abiding concern for Luxford’s safety, the last thing he expected to see was the red-haired woman sprawled out on the floor. Mr. Hostility had been lurching over her, which suggested that he was the one who’d put her there. What in hell was going on?

Once Luxford—always the personifi cation of gratitude—summarily ordered him out of the office, Rodney considered the possibilities. Red-Hair was a photojournalist to be sure. There was no other explanation for the camera bag she had with her. She’d probably come to sell some photographs to the paper.

The Source
bought pictures from free-lancers on a regular basis, so it wasn’t unusual for a photographer to show up with a clutch of dandy and potentially embarrassing snaps of one notable figure or another, from a member of the Royal Family looking downright unroyal, to a political figure making undignifi ed whoopie. But free-lancers with pictures to sell didn’t generally peddle them to the chief editor of the paper. They didn’t even meet with him. They met with the photo editor or one of his assistants.

So what did it mean, Luxford squiring Red-Hair into his office? No, that wasn’t quite it, was it? It was Luxford
hustling
Red-Hair into his office. And Luxford making damn sure that no one had a chance to talk to her. Or to Mr. Hostility, for that matter. And who the hell was
he?

Since Hostility’d scored a neat TKO against the redhead, Rodney could only assume that the man was determined to keep her photos out of the paper. Which suggested he was somebody. But who? He didn’t look like somebody. He didn’t look like anybody. Which itself suggested that he was featured in the photos with a somebody whose honour he was there to protect.

Quite a charming thought, that. Perhaps the days of chivalry weren’t dead. Which did make one wonder what Mr. Hostility was doing decking a woman. By all rights, he should have simply decked Luxford.

Rodney had been keeping his eye on dear Den since the Harrods rendezvous. He’d spent last evening at
The Source
, where he’d seen to it that Luxford’s nerves were kept on edge by dropping by his office every hour or so and making anxious noises about when the presses were going to run the morning’s edition. Luxford told him twice to go home, but Rodney hung about, sniffing round for an indication of why Luxford was pushing the print delay to the danger point. It was his duty to keep an eye on things, wasn’t it? If Luxford was cracking as it seemed he was cracking, then someone had to be there to sweep up the pieces when he broke apart.

Rodney decided that the delay had to do with the meeting at Harrods. He decided that he had misunderstood that meeting altogether. While he’d first assumed that Luxford was bonking the woman he’d met, he’d had to shift his thinking round when the printing delay fell immediately upon the assignation’s heels.

It had to do with a story, of course. Which—

setting aside that tender moment of physical contact in the restaurant—did make a hell of a lot more sense than an affair. After all, Luxford had nightly—not to mention morningly and afternoonly—access to the statuesque charms of the Fabulous Fiona. The woman in Harrods had been something of a moderate looker, but she was nothing in comparison to the Wondrous Wife.

Besides, she was in the Government, which made it even more likely that she had a story to tell. And if that was the case, then it had to be one hell of a page-turner involving the biggest of bigwigs: the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Home Secretary, maybe even the PM himself. The most stupendous stories usually involved the high-level bonking of low-level bonkees, especially if secrets pertaining to national security were part of the pre-or post-coital encounter. And it did rather make sense that a female member of the Government, her feminist nature boiling with outrage at the callous use of her sisters, had decided to play the whistle-blower. If she was going to blow the gaff about someone important, if she wanted to ensure her safety and her anonymity, and most important if she was able to make a connection with a newspaper’s editor, why not take the story directly to him?

Of course, of course. Hadn’t Luxford been pounding away at the keyboard of his computer when Rodney returned from Harrods yesterday? And what else could he have been holding up the presses for if not for confi rmation of a story? Luxford was no fool. He wouldn’t run an expose of anyone’s experiences in the seamier side of pinch-and-plunge without at least two independent confi rmations. Since the source was female, she was also potentially a woman scorned. Luxford was too wily a newsman to get caught in the middle of someone’s thirst for vengeance. So he’d waited, he’d held up the printing of the paper, and when she hadn’t been able to produce anyone to verify her accusations, he’d killed his own story.

Which still didn’t answer the question of who the devil she was.

Since he’d returned from Harrods, Rodney had been using his free time to scroll religiously through back issues of
The Source
, looking for a clue to the woman’s identity. If she was a member of the Government, surely they’d done a story involving her at one time or another. He’d given up the project at half past eleven last night, but he’d gone back to it this morning whenever time allowed. Shortly before noon, while in the midst of Mitch Corsico’s report on the latest developments in the Rent Boy Rumba (Larnsey had met at length with the PM; he would make no comment upon exiting Number Ten; Daffy Dukane had taken on an agent who was willing to negotiate terms for an exclusive interview but it was going to be costly), Rodney had latched on to a Corsico remark about “doing some browsing in the library” and mentally smacked himself on the forehead. What the hell was he doing sifting through back issues of the newspaper for a clue when all he had to do to uncover the identity of the woman in Harrods was to stroll down three floors to the tabloid’s library and flip through
The Times Guide to the House of
Commons
to see if Luxford’s source was indeed an MP and not some civil servant with access to a government car?

And there she was, smiling up from Chapter 19 with her overlarge spectacles and her overlong fringe. Eve Bowen, the MP from Marylebone and Undersecretary of State at the Home Office. Rodney whistled appreciatively at the information. She was indeed a moderate looker but, the Fab Fi aside, it was even more obvious now that Luxford hadn’t been meeting with her because of those looks.

If she was a Junior Minister, Bowen was ranked somewhere round third to fifth in importance at the Home Office. That put her into the regular company of movers and shak-ers of the highest importance. What she was offering Luxford must be pure gold, Rodney decided. So how the hell was he going to fi nd out what it was so that he could pass the information on to the chairman in an aside that would enhance Rodney’s persona as a ruthless newshound, a sagacious editor, and a beloved confidant of the mighty? Aside from reading Luxford’s mind for the code word that would give him access to Luxford’s computer terminal, where with any luck he could find the story the editor had been writing the previous night, Rodney didn’t have a clue. But he’d made progress with the discovery of Eve Bowen’s identity, and there was cause for celebra-tion in that.

Her identity was a sure fi rst step. With that as a starting point, Rodney knew he could call in a few debts that were owed him from several of the lobby correspondents at Parliament.

He could get on the phone with one or more of them and see what he could dig up. He’d have to be careful how he did it. The last thing he wanted was to set another paper on the trail of a story that
The Source
was about to break.

But handled with fi nesse…somehow connecting his curiosity to current events…perhaps revealing the paper’s intention to examine the role of women in Parliament…even going so far as to claim he was seeking the female reaction to the male MPs’ recent rash of trouser dropping…Surely he could uncover a detail that might mean nothing to a lobby journalist but everything to Rodney who knew about Bowen’s private meeting with Luxford and therefore who would also know how to interpret an aberration in her behaviour that might otherwise go disregarded by others.

Yes, yes. This was the answer. He reached for his Filofax. Sarah Happleshort popped into his doorway, unwrapping a stick of Wrig-ley’s spearmint.

“You’re on,” she said. “A star is born.”

He looked at her blankly, his thoughts taken up with which one of the lobby correspondents would most likely be taken in by his call.

“The understudy’s dream has come true.”

Sarah’s elbow jutted out in the general direction of Luxford’s office. “Dennis had an emergency. He’s left for the day. You’re in charge.

Do you want the crew in here for the news meeting? Or shall we use his offi ce?”

Rodney blinked. Sarah’s meaning became clear. The mantle of power settled over his shoulders, and he took a moment to savour its warmth. Then he did his best to look appropriately concerned and said, “An emergency?

Not something wrong with the family? His wife? His son?”

“Couldn’t say. He left with the man and woman he came in with. D’you know who they are? No? Hmmm.” She looked over her shoulder and across the newsroom. Her next words were thoughtful. “Something’s up, I expect. What d’you say?”

The last thing Rodney wanted was Happleshort’s quivering nose on the scent. “I say we have a paper to get out. We’ll meet in Den’s office. Gather the others. Give me ten minutes.”

When she left to do his bidding—how he liked to think of it in those lofty terms—Rodney went back to his Filofax. He leafed through it quickly. Ten minutes, he thought, was more

than enough time to place the phone call that would secure his future.

What Helen and Deborah had described to him as squats were really more like squats in the making, St. James discovered. They sat in a derelict row on George Street, a short distance away from a chi-chi-looking Japanese restaurant possessing the rare luxury of a car park behind it. St. James and Helen left the MG there.

George Street was typical of modern London, a street offering everything from the dignified presence of the United Bank of Kuwait to abandoned tenements waiting for someone to invest in their future. The particular tenements that he and Helen walked to had once been shops with three f loors of f lats above them. Their ground f loor display windows and their glass doors had been replaced with sheets of metal over which had been nailed a diagonal striping of boards. But the windows above street level were not boarded, nor were they broken, which made the flats above the shops desirable as squats.

As St. James looked the buildings over, Helen said, “There’s no way someone could get in from the front.”