People Die (14 page)
Authors: Kevin Wignall
“Exactly,” said Ed. “You just sit it out here for a day or two, I’ll go down to Washington, and then we’ll see what happens.” They walked on a short way without speaking before Ed added like an afterthought, “A shame we couldn’t have done something before they got to Larry.”
“You knew Viner? ” JJ asked, surprised.
“Yeah, pretty well; I always looked him up when I was in Paris. Actually I had lunch with him a couple of months ago. Fakhr el Dine, you know, at the IMA?”
“I know it. He used to lust after the waiters there.”
“Yeah,” Ed agreed, tacitly acknowledging the vast underbelly of Viner’s life, a side of him that was only vaguely hinted at in his lusting after young waiters. “Yeah, he was a sick individual. And maybe the world’s better off without him. He was decent though, where it counted.” JJ nodded, not saying anything, and Ed said, treading carefully, “I heard about your girlfriend too.”
Again, JJ nodded but said nothing, feeling there was nothing to say to someone who hadn’t known her, or them as a couple. He felt too like he wanted to avoid any situation where someone might sympathize with him on Aurianne’s behalf, sympathy that would have stuck in his throat, sickened him. Instead, he shifted the conversation back to Holden, saying, “You’re not married yourself ?”
Ed raised his eyebrows in response. “Fifteen years,” he said, correcting JJ’s assumption. “Jane’s a professor at Yale too. Thankfully, she’s visiting with her family in Sydney at the moment. But like Susan, she’s okay with the business, you know? She understands the risks.”
JJ reeled slightly, his shock based mainly on his impression of the house, a place which had looked like only one person lived there. He was certain too that the walk-in closet had contained only men’s clothes, but maybe he’d been mistaken, or maybe the missing clothes had been hers rather than his.
“No kids?”
“No. We put it off and put it off and in the end it just seemed too late.”
“And you don’t find business messes your life up?”
“No,” Ed said, matter-of-factly. “Until this came along. And that’s the beauty of still having your hand in, knowing what’s coming, getting tipped off.” He looked at JJ then, saying, “You know, you’re never gonna live a normal suburban commuter’s life—and who’d want to? But you can find a balance, with the right people, the right mix of trust and caution. It can work. Life can be good.” JJ smiled, bemused that Ed had so easily seen through him, like it was common for people of his age to be preoccupied with how they could square things up. “I’ll tell you something else,” added Ed. “I would never advise trying to cut your ties with the business, but you can do other things too.”
“Become a professor.” JJ laughed.
“You wouldn’t be the first, or writer or journalist. There’s no hurry, you’re young, but there are futures.”
“I’ll bear it in mind,” said JJ, still smiling but finding some comfort in the conversation, in Holden generally, the way he seemed to wear it all so lightly, like a man who’d come to terms with himself.
They walked on for another hour or more, Ed talking about his move into academia, about his career before that, a short spell in Vietnam, longer spells in Eastern Europe. They touched upon the subject of the Bostridges now and then too, almost in passing, and JJ found it reassuring to talk to someone who was as implicated in Bostridge’s death as he was and yet who was able to separate that fact completely from his ongoing relationship with the family.
Eventually they came to the village from its far side and stopped for lunch in a small restaurant, one JJ hadn’t even noticed on his previous walk, country-kitchen style, plenty of happily overweight couples eating in there. The waitress knew Ed and spoke a few words to him nearly every time she passed, Ed responding each time, his smile increasingly strained.
They’d finished eating when JJ remembered the icon from the previous day and said, “Found something under the bed yesterday, reminded me of something I saw in Moscow.” He was careful not to mention Bostridge by name in such a small place.
The response was dramatic all the same, Ed asking urgently, “You know what happened to it?” His eyes were sharp and focused, like the mention of it had reawakened something he’d long given up. It was amazing to see, how the contents of the package stolen from Bostridge could electrify him like nothing else they’d talked about, the laid-back Holden completely shed.
“The girl took it,” JJ said. “He was with a prostitute.”
“David!” Realizing he’d spoken too loudly Ed lowered his voice as he added, “He would have run a mile from someone like that, believe me.” JJ wondered if the original information on Bostridge had come from Holden and if perhaps he hadn’t known his friend as well as he’d thought. Ed seemed to pick up the doubt in JJ’s eyes and said, “I know what you’re thinking, and I admit it, it’s a shock to me that he was with anyone at all, but a hooker, absolutely no way.”
“How about some coffee?” said the waitress, suddenly appearing at their table with a cheery smile.
Ed transformed himself immediately, smiling, giving a hint to JJ of how easily he adopted that look of having nothing to worry about. “That’s a great idea, Megan. Coffee for me. Tea for my friend?”
“Yes, tea please,” confirmed JJ. He’d spoken to her a few times, but she smiled now and said, “Over from England?” He smiled back, nodding, not saying anything though, not wanting to encourage the conversation. Once she’d gone he cut back to their own, picking up where Ed had finished. “I thought you said he had a taste for excitement?”
“He did but not in that department. And he was obsessed with disease.” It made JJ think of the condom again, and of the girl who, if Holden was right, had done an incredible job in luring Bostridge astray. He was forgetting, though, that he’d seen her and that she probably hadn’t needed to try particularly hard, maybe just sit in the bar like he’d imagined, her job even easier if she hadn’t had to ask for money. It was compelling all the same, the slim possibility that she hadn’t been a prostitute, or at least that she hadn’t presented herself as one to Bostridge.
“Whatever she was,” JJ said, voicing his thoughts, “she was in bed with him when I got there, and she took the package. She searched the room, found it under the bed. No, she looked under the bed straightaway, like she knew where it would be.”
Ed looked shell-shocked, as much by the presence of the girl as by the loss of the package.
“I’ve often wondered what happened to it.” He pulled himself back into business mode and said, “See, I didn’t find out it would be on that trip till after David had left. So it was short notice, but I still made arrangements for the merchandise to be retrieved. When I was told it was missing, I assumed someone somewhere along the line had taken advantage of the situation, common enough out there, but I can tell you, it hurt more than usual on this occasion.”
Again it was interesting to hear him talk about being hurt by the loss of a package when he hadn’t used that kind of sentiment once in talking about David Bostridge. Perhaps it was because that kind of hurt was programmed into his system, or perhaps JJ had gotten him wrong, fooled by the flip exterior, and in truth it still hurt too much for him even to broach it, skipping across the story lightly instead, talking about swimming holes, Dartmouth, family backgrounds, anything superficial rather than deal with the intense and difficult truth at the heart of it all, the open wound of what he’d done.
“Won’t be a second,” the waitress informed them as she passed with two plates of food.
“Thanks, Megan.”
“What was in the package anyway?”
“An icon,” said Ed. “But no ordinary icon. It came from a church in Pechorsk, small town near Archangel. Probably came from Novgorod originally. The Annunciation painted on a wooden panel. The only icon in existence that we can say with some degree of certainty was painted by Theophanes. The ultimate prize, and a beautiful piece of art, truly beautiful!” He was fired up with describing it, offering a brief insight into how he probably was in the lecture hall.
It explained too why he’d reacted so excitedly to the mention of the package, perhaps even explained the girl’s behavior that night in Bostridge’s room. But then the girl, whatever she’d been, had almost certainly been following underworld instructions, driven not by the same reverence as Holden but by fear of what they’d have done to her had she failed to bring it back.
Suspecting then that even Holden’s reaction had been as much about money as anything else, JJ said, “Was it valuable?”
“Too valuable to be lost,” he said. “I don’t mean the money either, though this was an exceptional piece in a modest market. For someone in my field, to have had a piece like that in my hands, even for a short time ...” He trailed off and then Megan appeared, cluttering around the table, apologizing for the delay which she put down to the tea.
When she’d gone again JJ said, “It was stolen though?”
“Of course,” said Ed, the question ridiculous. “But we had a buyer lined up, someone with an extensive, mostly legitimate collection. He’d have left it to a museum when he died. It would have stayed there until a suit was lodged for its return, by which time Russia would have stabilized enough to ensure the piece’s safety. Sometimes stolen art is secured art, you know? I have no qualms about it.”
“As long as it’s stolen by the right person.”
“Exactly,” Ed said, acknowledging JJ’s mocking tone with a smile. “But don’t worry, that icon will resurface. I’ll stake my career on it.” JJ nodded, sipped at his tea, wondering idly which career he was talking about.
When they got back to the inn Ed insisted on introducing JJ properly to Susan, leading him through a door in the hallway to the part of the building that was still their private house. It was decorated much the same way as the main part of the inn, given away only in the domestic detail, a pair of training shoes on the floor, a jacket thrown over the banister at the bottom of the stairs.
Ed led him through to the kitchen where he could already hear Susan talking to Jack, the same catching-up conversation he’d walked in on before. JJ checked his watch then, surprised that he and Ed had been out for so long.
They were sitting either side of a kitchen table, strewn with paperwork, drinks, a half-eaten sandwich in front of Jack. Susan smiled at Ed as he appeared but kept on with what she was saying to Jack, some question about a kid who’d been in trouble, interrupting herself only when she saw JJ.
“Why, hello, JJ,” she said, smiling but looking surprised to see him there, wondering perhaps why Ed had brought a guest into their private space.
“Hello,” he returned, nodding to Jack who’d looked over to see who was there.
“Susan,” said Ed, “I’ve been out with JJ today and it turns out we’re connected. JJ’s a great friend of Tom’s.”
“Tom Furst? How amazing,” she said, lighting up with the news, and then to JJ, “You know, I sensed when you first came that you were, I don’t know, one of us I guess. What an amazing coincidence !”
“Not really,” he said sheepishly. “I didn’t want to say anything, but it was Tom who recommended this place.” She smiled, shaking her head in disbelief, her eyes full of warmth. It was as if she had sensed a connection with JJ, as if she’d wanted him to be more than a guest and was pleased now because there he was, one of them by association.
“Well come and sit down,” she said, clearing some of the papers into a pile, and then as they sat, one on each of the two remaining sides, “How about coffee? Or I can ask for tea? I make the most appalling tea.” They both declined. Jack went back to his sandwich and a glass of strawberry milk that left his top lip with a mustache each time he drank from it. For a minute Susan looked like she didn’t know where to begin but she said finally, “So are you actually in the same line of work as Tom?” There it was, a loaded question that had the capacity to open doors all the way to the facts of her husband’s death. Remembering what Holden had said about her though, about being okay with the business, he said carefully, “In effect, yes I am.”
“You’re like, a spy?” asked Jack, wiping the comical pink mustache with the back of his hand. He looked vaguely interested in the idea, like it was a career he was considering, or possibly because that’s what he thought his dad had been.
“Tom isn’t even a spy,” answered JJ, smiling. “And what I do is even less exciting than what Tom does.” Jack looked at him, a skeptical expression on his face, as if to make clear to JJ that he knew more about these things than most kids his age.
“I still find it hard to believe Tom’s a grownup,” Susan said.
Ed cut in, “Susan, your own kids are grownups. Look at this big guy here.”
Jack raised his eyebrows and looked at Ed, spelling it out. “Ed, I’m like, fourteen, which is like, a kid.
You’re
a grownup!”
You’re
a grownup!”
“Debatable point,” Susan said, turning back to JJ with a familiar American openness. “Why don’t you join us for dinner tonight?”
“That’s a great idea,” said Ed, looking at JJ.
“I’d like that, thanks.”
“Do I have to come?” Jack asked.
His mother looked exasperated. “I’m sorry,” she said to JJ before answering the kid. “Jack, you could at least wait for JJ to leave before you petition me to be excused.”
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