The Night Manager (39 page)

"Dans! Come here!"

Roper's voice has a way of producing silence. Even the American bond salesmen stop talking. Daniel trots obediently to his father's side. Roper releases Jed and places a hand on each of his son's shoulders and offers him to the audience for their inspection. He is speaking on impulse. He is speaking, Jonathan immediately realises, to Jed. He is clinching some running dispute between them that cannot be resolved without the backing of a sympathetic audience.

"Tribes of Bonga-Bonga Land starving to death?" Roper demands of the smiling faces. "Crops failing, rivers dried up, no medicines? Grain mountains all over Europe and America? Milk lakes we don't use, nobody gives a toss? Who are the killers, then? It's not the chaps who make the guns! It's the chaps who don't open the larder doors!" Applause. Then louder applause when they see that it matters to him. "Bleeding hearts up in arms? Colour supplements wingeing about the uncaring world? Tough titty! Because if your tribe hasn't got the guts to help itself, the sooner it's culled the better!" He gives Daniel a friendly shake. "Look at this chap. Good human material. Know why? Keep still, Dans. Comes from a long line of survivors. Hundreds of years, strongest kids survived, weaklings went under. Families of twelve? Survivors bred with the survivors and made him. Ask the Jews--right, Kitty? Kitty's nodding. Survivors, that's what we're about. Best of the pack, every time." He turns Daniel round and points him at the house. "Off to bed, old boy. Thomas'll come and read to you in a minute."

For a moment Jed is as uplifted as the rest of them. She may not join in the applause, but it is clear from her smile and the way she squeezes Roper's hand that, however briefly, his diatribe has granted her a lightening of the guilt, or doubt, or perplexity, or whatever it is these days that clouds her customary pleasure in a perfect world.

But after a few minutes, she slips silently upstairs. And does not come down again.

Corkoran and Jonathan sat in the garden of Woody's House, drinking cold beer. A red halo of dusk was forming over Miss Mabel Island. The cloud rose in a last ferment, remaking the day before it died.

"Lad called Sammy," Corkoran said dreamily. "That was his name. Sammy."

"What about him?"

"Boat before the Pasha. The Paula, God help us. Sammy was one of the crew."

Jonathan wondered whether he was about to receive Corkoran's confession of lost love.

"Sammy from Kentucky. Matelot. Always shinning up and down the mast like someone out of Treasure Islam!. Why's he do that? I thought. Showing off? Impress the girls? The boys? Me? Rum. Chief was into commodities in those days. Zinc, cocoa, rubber goods, tea, uranium, any bloody thing. Sit up all night sometimes, selling forwards, buying backwards, sideways, buying long, selling short, bulling, bearing. Insider stuff, of course, no point in taking risks. And this little bugger Sammy, nipping up and down the mast. Then I twigged. Hullo, I thought. I know what you're up to, Sammivel, my son. You're doing what I'd do. You're spying. Waited till we were anchored for the evening, as usual, sent the crew ashore, as usual. Then I fished out a ladder and pottered up the mast myself.

Nearly killed me, but I found it straightaway, tucked into an angle beside the aerial. Couldn't see it from the ground floor. Bug. Sammy'd been bugging the Chief's satcom, shadowing him on the markets. Him and his buddies on shore.

They'd pooled their savings. By the time we nabbed him, they'd turned seven hundred bucks into twenty grand."

"What did you do to him?"

Corkoran shook his head. "My problem is, old love," he confessed, as if it were something Jonathan might solve for him, "every time I look into your Pan eyes, all my chimes and whistles tell me it's young Sammy with his pretty arse shinning up the whatnot."

It is nine o'clock the next morning. Frisky has driven across to Townside and is sitting in the Toyota, trumpeting the horn for extra drama.

"Hands off cocks and pull on socks. Tommy boy, you're on parade! Chief wants a quiet tit-ah-tit. Forthwith, immediately, and get your finger out!"

Pavarotti was in full lament. Roper stood before the great fireplace, reading a legal document through his half-lenses.

Langbourne was sprawled on the sofa, one hand draped over his knee. The bronze doors closed. The music stopped.

"Present for you," said Roper, still reading.

A brown envelope addressed to Mr. Derek S. Thomas lay on the tortoise-shell desk. Feeling its weight, Jonathan had a disconcerting memory of Yvonne, pale-faced in her Pontiac beside the highway.

"You'll need this," Roper said, interrupting himself to shove a silver paper knife toward him. "Don't hack it about. Too damned expensive."

But Roper did not resume his reading. He went on watching Jonathan over his half-lenses. Langbourne was watching him too. Under their double gaze, Jonathan cut the flap and extracted a New Zealand passport with his own photograph inside it, the particulars in the name of Derek Stephen Thomas, company executive, born Marlborough, South Island, expiry three years off.

At the sight and touch of it he was for a moment ridiculously affected. His eyes blurred, a lump formed in his throat.

Roper protects me. Roper is my friend.

"Told 'em to put some visas in it," Roper was saying proudly, "make it scruffy." He tossed aside the document he had been reading. "Never trust a new passport, my view. Go for the old 'uns. Same as Third World taxi drivers. Must be some reason why they've survived."

"Thanks," Jonathan said. "Really thanks. It's beautiful."

"You're in the system," Roper said, thoroughly gratified by his own generosity. "Visas are real. So's the passport. Don't push your luck. Want to renew, use one of their consulates abroad."

Langbourne's drawl was in deliberate counterpoint to Roper's pleasure. "Better sign the fucking thing," he said. "Try out some signatures first."

Watched by both men, Jonathan wrote Derek S. Thomas, Derek S. Thomas, on a sheet of paper until they were satisfied.

He signed the passport, Langbourne took it, closed it and handed it back to Roper.

"Something wrong?" said Langbourne.

"I thought it was mine. To keep," said Jonathan.

"Who the hell gave you that idea?" said Langbourne.

Roper's tone was more affectionate. "Got a job for you, remember? Do the job, then off you go."

"What sort of job? You never told me."

Langbourne was opening an attaché case. "We'll need a witness," he told Roper. "Somebody who can't read."

Roper picked up the phone and touched a couple of numbers.

"Miss Molloy? Chief here. Mind stepping down to the study a moment?"

"What am I signing?" Jonathan said.

"Jesus, fuck, Pine," said Langbourne in a pent-up murmur. "For a murderer on the run, you're pretty bloody picky, I must say."

"Giving you your own company to manage," said Roper. "Bit of travel. Bit of excitement. Lot of keeping your mouth shut. Big piece of change at the end of the day. All debts paid in full, with interest."

The bronze doors opened. Miss Molloy was tall and powdery and forty. She had brought her own pen of marbled plastic, and it hung round her neck on a brass chain.

The first document appeared to be a waiver in which Jonathan renounced his rights to the income, profits, revenue or assets of a Curaçao-registered company called Tradepaths Limited. He signed it.

The second was a contract of employment with the same company, whereby Jonathan accepted all burdens, debts, obligations and responsibilities accruing to him in his capacity as managing director. He signed it.

The third bore the signature of Major Lance Montague Corkoran, Jonathan's predecessor in the post. There were paragraphs for Jonathan to initial and a place for him to sign.

"Yes, darling?" said Roper.

Jed had stepped into the room. She must have talked her way past Gus.

"I've got the Del Oros on the line," she said. "Dine and stay and mah-jongg in Abaco. I tried to get through to you but the switchboard says you're not taking calls."

"Darling, you know I'm not."

Jed's cool glance took in the group and stopped at Miss Molloy. "Anthea" she said. "Whatever are they doing to you? They're not signing you up to marry Thomas, are they?"

Miss Molloy turned scarlet. Roper gave an uncertain frown.

Jonathan had never seen him at a loss before.

"Thomas is coming aboard, Jeds. Told you. Setting him up with a bit of capital. Giving him a break. Felt we owed him one. All he did for Dans and so on. We talked about it, remember? Hell's going on, Jeds? This is business."

"Oh, well, that's super. Congratulations, Thomas." She looked at him at last. Her smile was distancing, but no longer so theatrical. "Just be awfully careful you don't do anything you don't want, won't you? Roper's terribly persuasive. Darling, can I tell them yes? Maria's so madly in love with you, I'm sure it'll break her heart if I don't."

"Anything else going on?" Burr asked, when he had listened in near silence to Jonathan's account of these events.

Jonathan affected to search his memory. "The Langbournes are having a marital tiff, but I gather that's par for the course."

"It's not unknown in this neck of the woods either," said Burr. But he still seemed to be waiting for more.

"And Daniel's going back to England for Christmas," said Jonathan.

"Nothing else?"

"Not of any moment."

Awkwardness. Each man waiting for the other to speak.

"Well tread water and act natural," said Burr grudgingly.

"And no more wild talk about breaking into his holy of holies, right?"

"Right."

Yet another pause before they both rang off.

I live my life, Jonathan told himself with deliberation as he jogged down the hill. I am not a puppet. I am nobody's servant.

EIGHTEEN

Jonathan had planned his forbidden assault on the state apartments as soon as he learned that Roper had decided to sell some more farms and that Langbourne would be accompanying him and Corkoran would be stopping off in Nassau to attend to Ironbrand business.

His resolve was confirmed when he heard from Claud the stablemaster that on the morning following the men's departure, Jed and Caroline proposed to lake the children on a pony trek of the island's coast path, setting off at six and returning to Crystal in time for brunch and a swim before the midday heat.

From that moment his dispositions became tactical. On assault day minus one he took Daniel on his first difficult climb up Miss Mabel's north face--more truthfully up the face of a small quarry cut into the steepest part of the hillock--which required three pitons and a roped traverse before they arrived triumphant at the eastern end of the airstrip. At the peak he gathered a bunch of sweet-scented yellow freesias, which the natives called shipping flowers.

"Who are they for?" Daniel asked while he munched his chocolate, but Jonathan managed to dodge the question.

Next day he rose at his usual early hour and jogged a stretch of the coastal path to make sure the trekking party had set out as planned. He came face-to-face with Jed and Caroline on a windy bend, with Claud and the children straggling behind.

"Oh, Thomas, will you by any chance be going up to Crystal later?" Jed asked, leaning forward to pat her Arab's neck as if she were starring in a cigarette advertisement. "Great. Then could you be frightfully kind and tell Esmeralda that Caro can't eat anything with milk fat because of her diet?"

Esmeralda was fully aware that Caroline could eat no milk fat, because Jed had told her so in Jonathan's hearing. But Jonathan was learning to expect the unexpected from Jed these days. Her smiles were distracted, her behaviour was more contrived than ever and small talk came hard to her.

Jonathan continued jogging till he reached his hide. He did not uncache the handset, because his will was his own today.

But he did help himself to his subminiature camera got up as a Zippo lighter, and to the camera he added the bunch of lock picks that were not disguised as anything, and clutching them in his fist so that they didn't chime while he ran, he returned to Woody's House and changed, then walked through the tunnel to Crystal, feeling the tingling of prebattle across his shoulders.

"Fuck you doin' with them shippin' flowers, Mist' Thomas?" the guard at the gate demanded of him good-humouredly. "You been up there robbin' poor Miss Mabel? Why, shit. Hey, Dover, come over here and put your stupid face in these shippin' flowers. You ever smell anything so beautiful? The shit you did! You never smelt nothin' in your life 'cept your young lady's cherry pie."

Reaching the main house, Jonathan had the giddying sensation of having returned to Meister's. It was not Isaac but Herr Kaspar who received him at the door. It was not Parker standing on the top of the aluminium ladder changing light bulbs but Bobbi the odd-job man. And it was Herr Kaspar's nymphet niece, not Isaac's daughter, who was languidly squirting insecticide into the potpourri. The illusion passed, and he was restored to Crystal. In the kitchen Esmeralda was conducting a seminar on world affairs with Talbot the boatman and Queenie from the laundry.

"Esmeralda, would you please find me a vase for these? Surprise present for Dan. Oh, and Miss Jed says to remind you that Lady Langbourne can't eat any milk products at all."

He was so arch about saying this that his audience burst into fits of uncontrollable laughter, which followed Jonathan up the marble staircase as, vase in hand, he headed for the second floor, apparently on his way to Daniel's quarters. Reaching the door to the state apartments, he paused. The flow of cheerful chatter from downstairs ran on. The door was ajar. He pushed it.

The sunlight, filtered by net curtains, lay like ground mist on the white carpet. Roper's side of the enormous bed was not slept in. Roper's pillows were still puffed up. On his bedside table lay current copies of Fortune, Forbes, The Economist, and back numbers of catalogues from auction houses round the world. Memo pads, pencils, a pocket recorder. Shifting his gaze to the other side of the bed, Jonathan observed the imprint of her body, the pillows crushed as if by restlessness, the tissue of black silk that was her nightdress, her Utopian magazines, the pile of coffee table books on furniture, great houses, gardens, great horses, more horses, books on Arab blood-stock and English recipes, and how to learn Italian in eight days. The smells were of infancy--baby powder, bubble bath. A luxurious trail of yesterday's clothes was spread haphazard over the chaise longue; and through the open doorway to the bathroom, he saw yesterday's swimsuit hanging in triangles from the shower rail.