Spearfield's Daughter (23 page)

“We're having a Mass said for her safe return.”

He thought Masses were said only for the dead, but he couldn't hear himself saying that. “Thank you. How have you and Rose been?”

“We miss the old days, Jack. But then at our age I suppose one always misses what we once had, don't you think?” She spoke as if she included him in her age group, which he resented. He wanted to resent her calling at all, but he could not blame her for that: she had done it with the best of intentions. There had been a time when he had called her, for his own intentions.

“Give my best to Rosa,” he said and hung up.

VIII

Sylvester Spearfield arrived at Heathrow the following morning, worn out by worry and the long journey. But most of his life had been a public appearance and he had an old actor's resilience. He tried to suggest that he had reserves of strength, that he was bearing up well, as he shook hands with Lord Cruze.

“This is good of you,” he said. “I know a lot of bosses who wouldn't go to this trouble.”

“I have a plane waiting,” said Cruze, not yet ready to confess that he was not here in his capacity as Cleo's boss. “Are you up to another two hours' flight to Hamburg?”

“Maybe I can have a kip while we're flying. Have you had any more news?”

“None. I've arranged for the ransom money to be waiting for me when we get there. We'll pay it, no questions asked.”

They flew to Hamburg in the DH-l04 Dove, each of them quiet, Jack Cruze staring out of the window at the bright morning, Sylvester lying back with his eyes shut but half opening them to watch the Englishman when the latter had his head turned away. They were careful of each other: Jack because he was wondering what Cleo's father knew of him and Cleo; Sylvester because, steeped in all his old prejudices, he was wondering why a boss was personally going to all this trouble over an employee. He had noticed that no one else but the plane's crew, no personnel manager or PR man, was travelling with them.

When they reached the hotel in Hamburg, Quentin Massey-Folkes was waiting for them. “No news yet, Mr. Spearfield.” He wasn't sure whether Senator was a title Australians cared about; Americans did, but they loved all titles that put them above the herd. “As an editor I can't tell you that no news is good news. We just have to hope for the best.”

“Have the police any leads?” said Jack Cruze.

Massey-Folkes shook his head. “They're trying to trace the personal movements of the dead girl, the kidnapper who was killed. They know her name and her family, but so far they've drawn a blank trying to find out whom she got around with. She left home six months ago and her parents hadn't heard anything of her until the police got in touch with them. I gather her mother's totally uncooperative, and refuses to believe her daughter had anything to do with the gang.”

“How did they identify her?”

“She had a St. Christopher's medal in her purse with her name on it. Evidently even anarchists
like
a little spiritual help.” He explained to Sylvester: “The kidnappers, in their ransom note, call themselves Universal Anarchy.”

“It sounds like a trade organization.” But Sylvester didn't really mean it as a joke.

“Do you want to meet the police, Jack?” This was no time for “
m'Lord
.” “I didn't tell them you were coming.”

“Let it go for the time being. Senator Spearfield would like to get some rest first. I'll come along to your suite, Senator, and make sure they've looked after you properly.”

“Anywhere I can stretch out will do. And forget the ‘Senator.' Sylvester is good enough, if it's not too much a mouthful. Some people shorten it to Sylver, with a
y
. And I'll probably be silver-haired by the time this is over.”

He was not used to the sort of luxury suite he was shown into by the assistant manager, but he said nothing; in politics you took the perks as they came. But this, he knew, was no perquisite: this was something more. He turned round as Jack Cruze, having dismissed the assistant manager, closed the suite door and stood with his back to it.

“Do you know about Cleo and me?”

“What?” But he knew at once, if too late.

“We're—well, I suppose the word is lovers. Some people might call her my mistress, but she's more than that to me.”

Sylvester looked at the grey-haired man who, today, looked as old as himself (though he had not looked in a mirror, so he did not know how old
he
suddenly looked). He thought of Cleo as he had last seen her, young and ripe, a girl for a young man. What had happened that she had sold (there couldn't be any other word for it) herself to this man?

“Jesus wept! No. No, I hadn't a clue. How long's it been going on?”

Going on: the phrase made him angry, but he kept himself under control. Couldn't Spearfield see that he loved his daughter? “Over a year. Eighteen months, I suppose. It happened gradually. There was no—no starting date.”

Shock had given Sylvester revived energy; he kept looking around him as if caged. “Christ Almighty, man, you're as old as I am!”

“
I'm fifty-one.”

“Old enough to be her bloody father! Jesus, I'm only fifty-eight!” Then he slowed down, tried to concentrate on the man standing on the other side of the big room. A future son-in-law? He couldn't grasp the idea. He took a deep breath, then sighed, shaking his head, waving a helpless, resigned hand. “I don't know why I'm blaming you. I suppose she went into it with her eyes open.”

“I think you know your daughter well enough—”

“I don't know that I do. Do you have any kids? Who knows what they think these days?”

“I don't have any children.”

“Well, I suppose that helps. It'd be bloody embarrassing for you, having a girl-friend the same age as your daughter or son. Are you married or divorced or what?”

Jack Cruze hesitated only a moment; but Sylvester caught it. “I'm married, but we're separated. Have been for twenty years.”

“But not divorced? Your wife won't give you one?”

Again the slight hesitation: again Sylvester noticed it. He had spent too many years on the floors of the House and the Senate to miss the change of gears in a man's mind. “No.”

“Well, that makes it promising for Cleo, doesn't it? Aaah!” It was like a stifled cry of pain. Suddenly he sat down, the last thirty-six hours falling on him with a weight he couldn't bear. “Leave me alone, Cruze. I'll have a sleep. Maybe I'll feel better when I wake up.”

“I'll wake you if we get any news.”

He went out of the suite and Sylvester lifted himself and crossed to the bed, pulled back the coverlet and lay down without taking off his clothes. He loosened his tie and lay on his back, his eyes closed but his mind still wide open. He was both angry and sad at what Cruze had told him; then, as his mind started to close in, reason told him he was concerned about the wrong thing. Cleo was in much more danger than just being involved with the wrong man. He fell asleep, too exhausted even to dream. Which was his only relief.

IX

Claudine had rung Roger from New York. “You're all right? You're not hurt?”

“
No, Joe Thorpe and I got out okay. I lost Rod Hill, my aide—”

“I know, it was on the wire. How's Louise? I think you should go back to Heidelberg, be with her after what's happened. She's had a dreadful shock. We all have—”

“Claudine, Louise is an army wife—she's been through this sort of thing before—”

“Not an attempted assassination or kidnapping or whatever those crazies had in mind! I think—”

“Claudine, let the army run its own affairs—
please.
Apart from having to stay on here for the manoeuvres, I can't run back home while Tom Border and that girl Spearfield are still missing.”

“No, I suppose not. What are you doing to get them back?”

“Personally, I'm doing nothing. This isn't an army matter. The German police are handling it. I understand Lord Cruze has agreed to pay the ransom, though that hasn't been made public yet. If they ask for more money, I hope you'll contribute some. I mean the company.”

“Of course, Roger—” She loved him, even though he could be a trial at times. “Take care. I'll get in touch with Jack Cruze and tell him we'll pay half the ransom.” Then she repeated, “Take care.”

He promised that he would, and hung up. But take care against whom? He was still suffering from the shock of what had happened, but he had managed to hide it. There might have been no shock at all if he had been expecting such an attack; but he had been totally unprepared for it. In Vietnam it had been different: there, you worked on the premise that the enemy surrounded you, could even be in your own house. But here the war had become just play-acting: the enemy was hundreds of miles to the east. Or so he thought until that blue van had come out of the side street, then the white BMW, and the bullets had come smashing into the staff car—then he had realized there was more than one enemy. Only a miracle had saved him and Joe Thorpe: perhaps he should say a prayer of thanks. Then he decided against it. God would know a hypocrite when he heard one.

The manoeuvres would start tomorrow. Six thousand men, a hundred tanks, guns, trucks, missile-carriers: he had the wild, mad idea that they should all be used to devastate the countryside, to bring the kidnappers out into the open. But he knew what could happen when an operation went too far. The wrong people could be killed.

Then, and the thought horrified him with its callous efficacy, he wondered if that would not solve his major problem.

X

Their captivity dragged on into the third day. They had slept together in the double bed without making love; or, as Cleo would have put it in her convent school days, without going all the way. They had slept in their underwear and despite the hopelessness of their situation (or because of it) the urge for sex had been strong in both of them.

Gerd had brought them a meal five hours after they had been locked up. In that time they had had plenty of opportunity to inspect their cell and to realize there was little or no chance of escape. The boards across the window were set into the outer frame, then screwed down and the heads of the screws filed flat. The door was a stout one, a real country door not a plywood one, and there were two locks to it. There was a small fireplace in the room, but the chimney was far too narrow for any escape that way.

“Why couldn't you have been one of those skinny fashion models? I could have hoisted you up the chimney.”

The meal tray had been taken away by Kurt (Rosa was doing no woman's work: she was downstairs cleaning the guns) and it was time for bed. Cleo was exhausted physically and emotionally; she knew she would sleep the sleep of the dead. She knew in her heart that she was dead anyway: the gang below were not going to allow her and Tom to go free. She took off her sweater and skirt and got into bed.

“I'll sleep in the chair,” Tom said.

“No. I want some comfort.” That was all she was thinking of at the moment.

He undressed, all but his shorts, switched out the light and got in beside her. A thin ribbon of light from the light out on the landing lay under the door, but in their mental state the darkness seemed complete. Hesitantly he lifted his arm and was pleased when, without hesitation, she put her head in the crook of it. They lay like two people who had been going to bed together for years, for whom sex was only a Friday or Saturday night entertainment.

“Today's Tuesday,” she said. “The manoeuvres start tomorrow. Maybe they'll have the army out looking for us.”

“Maybe.” He wasn't hopeful. He had had experience of the army's interest in newsmen when he had been in Vietnam. “We could be miles from where the army is. I lost track of time when they put that
sack
over my head. I couldn't tell whether we travelled twenty miles or a hundred.”

“It wasn't far, not that far. I looked at my watch when they brought us up here. We couldn't have been travelling for more than an hour. And they didn't drive too fast.”

“Probably the same as when they had me driving the Merc. They didn't want to attract attention. Maybe everything will work out okay.” He pressed her shoulder, felt the satin of her skin.

“Tom—” She could feel the muscles of his arm beneath her neck, felt their hard edge against her cheek. He was still bony, but he was also more muscular than she had remembered. Or perhaps all young men were. “When we get out of this, let's be friends. Don't let's avoid each other.”

He said nothing for a moment, then he felt for her chin with his free hand and lifted her face. He kissed her on the lips, and was not surprised when they opened under his. He moved his body against hers, turning sideways so that she could feel what was happening to him. She felt him, all right: young men and old were all hard there, given these circumstances. She rolled over on her back, lifting her elbow to hold it against his ribs so that he would not think she was offering him an invitation.

“You'd better get up and let the night air get to the Old Feller.”

“To the what?”

“
That
. . . We can't, Tom. Not with them down there in the room below. They'd come up to watch.”

It was some relief and pleasure to know that she might have let him make love to her had they not been where they were. He lay back and laughed softly. “You're right. They'd hear us. There's an old saying down where I come from. There's no humpin' without bumpin'.”

“Delicately put. Do you think you can sleep without trying to stick it into me?”

“Delicately put. I'll try. Do you want to put a pillow between us? Bundling, they used to call it.”