What Men Say (23 page)

“God,” said Loretta, putting herself in the woman driver's place, “she must feel terrible.”

Tracey was eager to finish his story. “The key thing is the van,” he went on, “because it seems to have been used in all the attacks.
Including
the one last Friday night—”

Bridget said: “It was in the
Telegraph,
remember? A woman who was attacked when her car broke down.”

Loretta nodded.

“The point being,” Tracey continued inexorably, “that the police have known about the attacks for a while but they didn't issue a warning.” He held up his hands, palms upwards. “I mean, it's one thing to say you don't want to encourage copycat attacks, but if you go down that road you have to accept that you're putting
women at risk—women who might otherwise not use that stretch of road alone,” he finished confusingly. He began feeling in his pockets and Loretta said quickly: “Sorry, I offered you coffee. Could you switch the kettle on again, John?”

“Mmm? Oh yes, right.” Her attempt at diverting him from his search for cigarettes was successful, for he leaned across, pressed the switch at the back of the kettle and picked up his notebook. “All right if I use your phone? Don't worry about the bill, I'll get them to send you a check to cover it.” Before she could speak he'd picked up the phone and dialed three figures. “Hello? It's a Geneva number—the name's Stannion. S-T-A-N-N-I-O-N, Denise. Route de . . .” He hesitated, then spelt out a street name. “Route de L-O-E-X.” He waited a moment, drumming his fingers impatiently on the worktop, then began to write. “Do you happen to know the code for Geneva?” He added more figures, jiggled the rest and dialed again. “It's an organization called Women Against Rape, I haven't got their address—”

He looked questioningly at Loretta, who shook her head slightly and said: “Somewhere around King's Cross, but I'm not sure.”

“That'll be it.” He took down another number and prepared to dial again.

“What's this Geneva number?” Loretta said in a low voice to Bridget; she was pretty sure Tracey would forget his promise and leave her to foot the bill.

“Answering machine, damn.” He stayed by the phone, clicking his tongue several times as a variety of expressions flitted across his face.

“She's the one—the woman who gave her the lift,” Bridget whispered. “She works in Geneva, and apparently she didn't see an English paper till last night.”

“Is Tony around?” Tracey was saying, his back to
them again. “Yes, please.” He waited a moment, then said: “Tony? You know these international unions based in Geneva—do you happen to know the name of the post office lot? Or the number? No, don't worry, it's not an industrial story at all, I just need to speak to someone there. Why do you ask?” Loretta, who was aware of the intense professional rivalry which existed between journalists on the
Sunday Herald,
permitted herself a little smile as Tracey said warily: “Denise Stannion, as a matter of fact. You do? What's she like? The press office”—his tone changed—“well, that helps. All right if I mention your name? Listen, if I have any trouble getting hold of her I'll ring you back. Thanks”—writing again—“I owe you a pint.”

Bridget said quietly: “Marvelous, isn't it? The British journalist at work.”

“Mmm.” The kettle boiled and Loretta, who hadn't had so much as a cup of tea for breakfast, got up to make coffee. “John,” she said, tapping him lightly on the shoulder as he waited for the Geneva number to ring.

“Hello?” He was off again.
“Parlez-vous anglais?
Thank God for that. The press office, please. Hello, is Denise Stannion there? Oh.” He looked at his watch. “What's the time difference? And she'll be back at one thirty, Swiss time? Yes, please. Would you ask her to ring John Tracey? Here's my number.” To Loretta's relief he gave the number of the Randolph Hotel, then rang off. “Damn,” he said, as though it was a matter of huge personal inconvenience, “I forgot they're an hour ahead. Still, bloody early to be having your lunch.”

“This woman,” said Loretta, “what do you want to speak to her for?”

Tracey gave her a pitying look. “How long's it take to drive from Heathrow Airport to Newbury? An hour
at least, ninety minutes in heavy traffic, and they must have talked about something. I don't know what this Stannion woman told the cops but I assume the girl said why she was here—to take part in an ice-dancing display or whatever.”

“Ice dancing?” Loretta looked up from plunging the lid of the cafetiere.

Tracey shook his head. “It's the one-way system, I've gone past the ice rink so many times I've got it on the brain.”

Loretta took three mugs out of the dishwasher and Bridget said: “How come you were able to get all the details of these attacks so fast? If you're saying nobody knew they were connected . . .”

Tracey looked up from studying his notebook. “That's one of the advantages of the new computer system. All you have to do is put in a name or a word and it prints out every reference . . . I rang from the coroner's court and got them to do a search for anything mentioning the A34—excluding roadworks, of course.” He tapped his notebook. “And here it all is. Thanks, Loretta.” He took the mug of milky coffee she was holding out to him, sipped from it and put it down beside him on the worktop. “I've got to go, they're faxing that stuff over to the hotel and I don't want to clog up your phone.” He leaned towards Loretta, kissed her cheek and waved to Bridget. “Don't bother to come up. Talk to you later.”

Loretta sat down with her coffee, staring after him. “I'd forgotten what it's like, journalism,” she said, and turned at a slight movement from Bridget. Her head was cocked, listening, and when the front door slammed she let out a heartfelt sigh of relief. “God, Loretta,” she said, slumping forward over the table, “I can't tell you what a relief . . . I never thought,” she said, raising her head
slightly, “I never thought there'd come a day when I was glad to hear there's a rapist on the loose but after yesterday . . . I was half expecting to walk into the courtroom and they'd arrest me.” She laughed loudly and almost hysterically. “I've never been so frightened. I had to hang on to Sam or my legs would've given way.”

“Does he know? Not
again,
” she exclaimed as the phone sounded, thinking the interruption could not have come at a more inopportune moment. The female caller asked for Bridget and identified herself as the estate agent who had phoned yesterday. “For you,” said Loretta, handing the phone over.

“You have?” Bridget said, her face lighting up. “How much?” Her manner became businesslike, and Loretta could see from her expression that she was doing a series of mental calculations. “Well, it's a lot less than I'd hoped. I know, but the mortgage . . . You don't think he'll go up five thousand? Oh, I see, a cash buyer. Can I think about this? I'll have to talk to my husband, anyway, and my solicitor. No, that's fine, give me half an hour and I'll call you back.” She put the phone down and turned apologetically to Loretta. “Some chap called Professor Lai has made an offer on the house, it's a bit low but he's a cash buyer and he wants an answer by the end of this afternoon. Sorry.”

Loretta sighed. “I'll be upstairs,” she said, picking up her coffee as Bridget began dialing another number.

“Loretta—”

She paused by the door but Bridget shook her head helplessly and spoke into the phone. Loretta shrugged, went back for the
Guardian
and carried it and her coffee up to the ground floor.

Loretta pushed open the door to the ladies' lavatory at the back of the restaurant and glanced furtively to her
left. The open doors of the cubicles confirmed she had the place to herself and she went to a washbasin, balanced her evening bag on the edge and examined her reflection in the mirror. She had drunk two glasses of wine at the theater, one before the performance started and another during the interval, and the alcohol had brought a slight flush to her cheeks. Her hair, tied back with a black ribbon, had worked loose and hung in spiral curls, softening the outline of her face. Her lipstick had all but disappeared and she hastily rubbed off the last traces, reaching in her bag for the gold tube and reapplying it with hesitant strokes. The color was new, a deeper red than she usually wore, and the face which looked out of the mirror seemed for an instant to belong to someone else, someone sexier and more self-assured than she had felt for several months.

Loretta tilted her head, getting used to this new version of herself. She would be thirty-eight in three days' time, a fact her mother had pointed out in a frosty phone call just before Loretta left the house to meet Christopher Cisar. She took a step back from the mirror, thinking that her face, if she didn't look too closely at the fine lines below her eyes, could easily be that of a much younger woman. Even her crushed silk dress, which had felt ridiculously out of place in the crowded foyer of the Apollo Theatre, looked soft and seductive now she was no longer surrounded by posters announcing forthcoming appearances by Bobby Davro and the Chippendales.

The door from the restaurant to the lavatories slid open and Loretta hurried into one of the cubicles, not wanting to be caught posing narcissistically in front of the mirrors. When she emerged, a woman with long dark hair was leaning over one of the washbasins in an attitude of concentration, retouching her lips as Loretta
had a moment before. Their eyes met in the mirror and they both laughed spontaneously, sharing a silent joke about a ritual first encountered at school discos.

“You'd think it'd be easy after all these years,” the woman said, blotting her lips on a tissue.

Loretta rinsed her hands at the other washbasin. “It seems rather frivolous but I wish I could get the hang of a lip pencil.” The dark woman grinned and slid open the door to the restaurant, leaving Loretta to dry her hands.

Christopher Cisar gave her a puzzled look as she slid back into her chair. “You meet a friend back there? You were gone so long I almost sent a waitress after you.”

Loretta smiled apologetically. “How's the wine?” she asked, still relieved by her discovery that he was not the teetotal health freak she had originally taken him for.

“Fine.” Christopher still looked slightly suspicious. “You sure you're OK?”

“Mmm.” Loretta tasted the wine, a Californian white which had arrived while she was away from the table.

“In that case”—Christopher leaned back in his chair—“why don't you tell me what got you so steamed up at the opera?”

Loretta lifted her head. “What?”

“You were fine till somewhere near the end, then you began shifting around in your seat.”

“Did I?”

“M-hmm.”

“Well, it did get rather silly. When Zerbin—Zerbinella—”

“Zerbinetta.”

“Yes, when Zerbinetta started handing out advice to Ariadne. I mean, my German's not
that
good but I got the gist. We're such helpless little creatures, as soon as the next man comes along we throw ourselves into his
arms, we just
can't
help it . . . The librettist, what's his name?”

“Hugo von Hoffmannsthal.”

“Yeah, well, maybe it's something about the Germans—like Wedekind and Lulu. When he has her say her ideal lover is a sexual maniac or words to that effect. It's exactly what I'm writing about at the moment, the way writers produce all these banal theories about female sexuality and put them in women's mouths.”

He grinned. “I get the point. So what do you think Ariadne ought to do? When she wakes up and discovers Theseus has dumped her in the night?”

“Ariadne? There's not much she
can
do, is there, stuck in a legend? All I'm saying is, there's no need to overdo it.”

“Isn't that kind of defeatist? I guess she and Zerbinetta could set up some kind of cooperative—grow vegetables or something till the coastguard happens along.”

“Of course,” said Loretta, thinking aloud, “she
is
pregnant, which is a slightly limiting factor.”

“Who is?”

“Ariadne. Doesn't anyone mention it in the opera? Maybe they don't.”

“Not as I recall.”

“Interesting. Because the point is that not only has she betrayed her father, helping Theseus to kill the Minotaur and get out of the maze, she's actually pregnant by him—”

Loretta felt a light touch on her left arm and turned to see a thin-lipped, nervous woman smiling at her. “Harriet!” she exclaimed without enthusiasm. “Where are you sitting? I didn't see you.” She peered over her
shoulder, looking for Harriet's husband, and saw him wave at her from a table in the far corner.

Harriet's eyes darted to Christopher and back to Loretta. “I tried to catch you when you went to the loo but you were miles away. How
is
Bridget? We only got back from France last night and I haven't had a chance to ring.”

“Quite well, in the circumstances. They're keeping an eye on her blood pressure, it's higher than it should be, but mentally she's . . . pretty well.” Loretta thought, but did not say, that delirious was a more apt description; the unexpected sale of her house, coming immediately after she had been let off the hook by the bizarre new development in the murder investigation, had sent Bridget into a state bordering on euphoria. She had insisted on giving Loretta a lift to George Street, talking all the way about her plans for the next few weeks and stopping the car to give her a big hug when they got to the Apollo Theatre.

“Do you know Christopher Cisar?” Loretta asked, remembering her manners. “Christopher—Harriet Hunt. Harriet's a friend of Bridget, in fact I don't think we've met since—”

“Since she moved from Woodstock Road,” Harriet confirmed. “You know she actually invited us—I mean we would have been
there,
at the party, if we hadn't been in France. I was absolutely
amazed
when I read about it, Frank brought a copy of the
Daily Express
back from Avignon, it was the only English paper he could get, and there it was on the front page. And then on the news tonight, before we came out, they said it was something to do with a rapist on the A34?” She paused, waiting for Loretta to pick up this cue.