Whiteout (18 page)

THE weather was getting worse. Toni's drive to the old folks' home had been protracted, but the return journey was even slower. There was a thin layer of snow on the road, beaten hard by car tires, frozen too solid to turn into slush. Nervous drivers went at a crawl, delaying everyone else. Toni's red Porsche Boxster was the perfect car for overtaking sluggards, but it was not at its best in slippery conditions, and there was little she could do to shorten her journey.

Mother sat contentedly beside her, wearing a green wool coat and a felt hat. She was not in the least angry with Bella. Toni was disappointed by this, and was ashamed of feeling so. Deep inside, she wanted Mother to be furious with Bella, as Toni herself had been. It would have vindicated her. But Mother seemed to think it was Toni's fault she had been kept waiting so long. Toni had said irritably, “You do realize that Bella was supposed to pick you up hours ago.”

“Yes, dear, but your sister's got a family to take care of.”

“And I've got a responsible job.”

“I know, it's your substitute for children.”

“So it's okay for Bella to let you down, but not for me.”

“That's right, dear.”

Toni tried to follow Mother's example and be magnanimous. But she kept thinking of her friends at the spa, sitting in the Jacuzzi, or acting charades, or drinking coffee by a big log fire. Charles and Damien would become more hilariously camp as the evening progressed and they relaxed.
Michael would tell stories about his Irish mother, a legendary spitfire in her hometown of Liverpool. Bonnie would reminisce about college days, the scrapes she and Toni had got into as the only two females in an engineering department of three hundred students. They would all be having so much fun, while Toni drove through the snow with her mother.

She told herself to stop being pathetic. I'm a grown-up, she thought, and grown-ups have responsibilities. Besides, Mother might not be alive for many more years, so I should enjoy having her with me while I can.

She found it harder to look on the bright side when she thought about Stanley. She had felt so close to him this morning, and now the gulf between them was bigger than the Grand Canyon. She asked herself constantly whether she had pushed him too hard. Had she made him choose between his family and her? Perhaps if she had backed off he would not have felt forced into a decision. But she had not exactly thrown herself at him, and a woman had to give a man a little encouragement, otherwise he might never speak at all.

There was no point in regrets, she told herself. She had lost him, and that was that.

Up ahead she saw the lights of a petrol station. “Do you need the toilet, Mother?” she said.

“Yes, please.”

Toni slowed down and pulled onto the forecourt. She topped up her tank, then took her mother inside. Mother went to the ladies' room while Toni paid. As Toni returned to the car, her mobile phone rang. Thinking it might be the Kremlin calling, she snatched the phone up hurriedly. “Toni Gallo.”

“This is Stanley Oxenford.”

“Oh.” She was taken aback. She had not been expecting this.

“Perhaps I'm phoning at an inconvenient time,” he said politely.

“No, no, no,” she said quickly, sliding behind the wheel. “I imagined the call was from the Kremlin, and I was worried that something might have gone wrong there.” She closed the car door.

“Everything's fine, as far as I know. How's your spa?”

“I'm not there.” She told him what had happened.

“How terribly disappointing,” he said.

Her heart was beating faster, for no very good reason. “What about you—is everything all right?” She was wondering why he had phoned. At the same time, she watched the brightly lit pay booth. It would be a while before her mother emerged.

“Family dinner ended in an upset. It's not exactly unknown—we do have rows sometimes.”

“What was it about?”

“I probably shouldn't tell you.”

Then why have you phoned me? she thought. It was extraordinary for Stanley to make a pointless call. He was usually so focused that she sensed he had in front of him a list of topics he needed to cover.

“In brief, Kit revealed that Miranda had slept with Hugo—her sister's husband.”

“Good God!” Toni pictured each of them: handsome, malicious Kit; plump, pretty Miranda; Hugo, a pint-size charmer; and the formidable Olga. It was a ripe tale, but what was more surprising was that Stanley should repeat it to her, Toni. Once again, he was treating her as if they were intimate friends. But she mistrusted that impression. If she allowed her hopes to rise, he would crush her again. All the same, she did not want to end the conversation. “How do you feel about it?” she said.

“Well, Hugo was always a bit flaky. Olga knows him by now, after almost twenty years of marriage. She's humiliated, and mad as hell—in fact I can hear her yelling at this very moment—but I think she'll forgive him. Miranda explained the circumstances to me. She didn't have an affair with Hugo, just slept with him once, when she was depressed after the breakup of her marriage; and she's been feeling ashamed of herself ever since. I think eventually Olga will forgive her, too. It's Kit who bothers me.” His voice became sad. “I always wanted my son to be courageous and principled, and grow into an upright man who could be respected by everyone; but he's sly and weak.”

Toni realized, in a flash of revelation, that Stanley was talking to her as he would have talked to Marta. After a row such as this, the two of them would have gone to bed and discussed the role of each of their
children. He was missing his wife and making Toni a substitute. But this thought no longer enthralled her. Quite the reverse: she was resentful. He had no right to use her in this way. She felt exploited. And she really ought to make sure her mother was all right in the petrol station toilet.

She was about to tell him so when he said, “But I shouldn't burden you with all this. I called to say something else.”

That was more like Stanley, she thought. And Mother would be okay for a few minutes more.

He went on, “After Christmas, will you have dinner with me one evening?”

What now? she thought. She said, “Of course.” What did this mean?

“You know how I disapprove of men who make romantic advances towards their employees. It puts the employee in such a difficult position—she's bound to feel that if she refuses, she may suffer in her career.”

“I have no such fears,” she said, a bit stiffly. Was he saying that this invitation was not a romantic advance, so she did not need to worry? She found herself short of breath, and strove to sound normal. “I'd be delighted to have dinner with you.”

“I've been thinking about our conversation this morning, on the cliff.”

So have I, she thought.

He went on: “I said something to you then that I've been regretting ever since.”

“What . . .” She could hardly breathe. “What was that?”

“That I could never start another family.”

“You didn't mean it?”

“I said it because I had become . . . frightened. Strange, isn't it? At my time of life, to be scared.”

“Scared of what?”

There was a long pause, then he said, “Of my feelings.”

Toni almost dropped the phone. She felt a flush spread from her throat to her face. “Feelings,” she repeated.

“If this conversation is embarrassing you dreadfully, you just have to say so, and I'll never refer to it again.”

“Go on.”

“When you told me that Osborne had asked you out, I realized you wouldn't be single forever, probably not much longer. If I'm making a complete fool of myself, please tell me right away, and put me out of my misery.”

“No—” Toni swallowed. He was finding this extraordinarily difficult, she realized. It must be forty years since he had spoken this way to a woman. She ought to help him. She should make it clear that she was not offended. “No, you're not making a fool of yourself, not at all.”

“I thought this morning that perhaps you might feel warmly towards me, and that's what scared me. Am I right to tell you all this? I wish I could see your face.”

“I'm very glad,” she said in a low voice. “I'm very happy.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“When can I see you? I want to talk some more.”

“I'm with my mother. We're at a petrol station. She's just coming out of the toilet. I can see her now.” Toni got out of the car, still holding the phone to her ear. “Let's talk tomorrow morning.”

“Don't hang up yet. There's so much to say.”

Toni waved at her mother and called: “Over here!” Mother saw her and turned. Toni opened the passenger door and helped her in, saying, “I'm just finishing off this phone call.”

Stanley said, “Where are you?”

She closed the door on Mother. “Only about ten miles from Inverburn, but progress is painfully slow.”

“I want us to meet tomorrow. We've both got family obligations, but we're entitled to some time to ourselves.”

“We'll work something out.” She opened the driver's door. “I must go—Mother's getting cold.”

“Goodbye,” he said. “Call me anytime you feel like it. Anytime.”

“Goodbye.” She flipped the phone shut and got into the car.

“That's a big smile,” Mother said. “You've cheered up. Who was on the phone—someone nice?”

“Yes,” Toni said. “Someone very nice indeed.”

KIT waited in his room, impatient for everyone to settle down for the night. He needed to get away as soon as possible, but everything would be ruined if someone heard him leave, so he forced himself to linger.

He sat at the old desk in the box room. His laptop was still plugged in, to conserve the battery: he would need it later tonight. His mobile phone was in his pocket.

He had dealt with three calls to and from the Kremlin. Two had been harmless personal calls to guards, and he had let them through. The third had been a call from the Kremlin to Steepfall. Kit guessed that Steve Tremlett, having failed to reach Toni Gallo, might have wanted to let Stanley know about the problem with the phones. He had played a recorded message saying there was a fault on the line.

While he waited, he listened restlessly to the sounds of the house. He could hear Olga and Hugo having a row in the next bedroom to his, Olga firing questions and assertions like a pistol, Hugo by turns abject, pleading, persuading, bantering, and abject again. Downstairs, Luke and Lori clattered pots and crockery in the kitchen for half an hour, then the front door slammed as they left to go to their house a mile away. The children were in the barn, and Miranda and Ned had presumably gone to the guest cottage. Stanley was the last to bed. He had gone into his study, closed the door, and made a phone call—you could tell when someone was on the phone elsewhere in the house, because a “busy” light appeared
on all the extensions. After a while Kit heard him climb the stairs and close his bedroom door. Olga and Hugo both went to the bathroom, and afterward they were quiet; either reconciled or exhausted. The dog, Nellie, would be in the kitchen, lying next to the Aga, the warmest place in the house.

Kit waited a little longer, giving them all a chance to go to sleep.

He felt vindicated by the family squabble earlier. Miranda's peccadillo proved that he was not the only sinner in the family. They blamed him for revealing a secret, but it was better to have these things out in the open. Why should his transgressions be blown up out of all proportion and hers discreetly hidden away? Let them be angry. He had enjoyed seeing Olga smack Hugo. My old sister packs a punch, he thought with amusement.

He wondered if he dared leave yet. He was ready. He had taken off his distinctive signet ring, and had replaced his stylish Armani wristwatch with a nondescript Swatch. He was dressed in jeans and a warm black sweater; he would carry his boots and put them on downstairs.

He stood up—then heard the back door slam. He cursed with frustration. Someone had come in—one or two of the kids, probably, raiding the fridge. He waited to hear the door again, indicating that they had left; but instead footsteps mounted the stairs.

A moment later he heard his bedroom door open. The footsteps crossed the outer room and Miranda came into the box room. She wore Wellington boots and a Barbour over her nightdress, and she was carrying a sheet and a duvet. Without speaking, she went to the sleepchair and unfolded it.

Kit was irate. “For God's sake, what do you want?”

“I'm sleeping here,” she replied calmly.

“You can't!” he said, panicking.

“I don't see why not.”

“You're supposed to be in the cottage.”

“I've had a row with Ned, thanks to your dinnertime revelation, you sneaking little shit.”

“I don't want you here!”

“I don't give a damn what you want.”

Kit tried to stay calm. He watched with dismay as Miranda made up a bed on the sleepchair. How was he going to steal out of his bedroom, with her in here where she could hear everything? She was upset, she might not go to sleep for hours. And then, in the morning, she was sure to get up before he returned and notice his absence. His alibi was collapsing.

He had to go now. He would pretend to be even angrier than he really was. “Fuck you,” he said. He unplugged his laptop and closed the lid. “I'm not staying here with you.” He stepped into the bedroom.

“Where are you going?”

Out of her sight, he picked up his boots. “I'm going to watch TV in the drawing room.”

“Keep the volume low.” She slammed the door between the two rooms.

Kit went out.

He tiptoed across the dark landing and down the stairs. The woodwork creaked, but this house shifted constantly, and no one took any notice of odd noises. A faint light from the porch lamp came through a small window beside the front door and made halos around the hat stand, the newel post at the foot of the stairs, and the stack of directories on the telephone table. Nellie came out of the kitchen and stood by the door, wagging her tail, hoping with irrepressible canine optimism to be taken for a walk.

Kit sat on the stairs and put his boots on, listening for the sound of a door opening above him. This was a dangerous moment, and he felt a shiver of fear as he fumbled with his laces. People were always walking around in the middle of the night: Olga might want a drink of water, Caroline could come over from the barn looking for a headache pill, Stanley might be struck by scientific inspiration and go to his computer.

He tied his bootlaces and put on his black Puffa jacket. He was almost out.

If someone saw him now, he would simply go. No one would stop him. The problem would arise tomorrow. Knowing he had left, they might guess where he had gone, and his whole plan was that no one should understand what had happened.

He shoved Nellie away from the door and opened it. The house was never locked: Stanley believed that intruders were unlikely in this lonely spot, and anyway the dog was the best burglar alarm.

Kit stepped outside. It was bitterly cold, and the snow was falling heavily. He pushed Nellie's nose back inside and closed the door behind himself with a soft click.

The lights around the house were left on all night, but despite them he could hardly see the garage. The snow was several inches thick on the ground. In a minute his socks and the cuffs of his jeans were soaked. He wished he had worn Wellingtons.

His car was on the far side of the garage, a duvet of snow on its roof. He hoped it would start. He got in, putting his laptop on the passenger seat beside him, so that he could deal quickly with calls to and from the Kremlin. He turned the key in the ignition. The car coughed and spluttered but, after a few seconds, the engine turned over.

Kit hoped no one had heard it.

The snow was so heavy it was blinding. He was obliged to switch on his headlights, and pray that no one was looking out of a window.

He pulled away. The car slid alarmingly on the thick snow. He crept forward, careful not to turn the steering wheel suddenly. He coaxed the car onto the drive, maneuvered cautiously around the headland and into the woods, and followed the lane all the way to the main road.

Here the snow was not virgin. There were tire tracks in both directions. He turned north, heading away from the Kremlin, and drove in the tracks. After ten minutes he turned onto a side road that wound over hills. There were no tire tracks here, and he slowed even more, wishing he had four-wheel drive.

At last he saw a sign that read “Inverburn School of Flying.” He turned into an entry. Double wire gates stood open. He drove in. His headlights picked out a hangar and a control tower.

The place appeared deserted. For a moment, Kit half-hoped the others would not show up and he could call off the whole thing. The thought of suddenly ending this terrible tension was so appealing that his
spirits sank and he began to feel depressed. Pull yourself together, he thought. Tonight will be the end of all your troubles.

The hangar door stood partly open. Kit drove slowly in. There were no planes inside—the airfield operated only in the summer months—but he immediately saw a light-colored Bentley Continental that he recognized as Nigel Buchanan's. Beside it stood a van marked “Hibernian Telecom.”

The others were not in sight, but a faint light came from the stairwell. Carrying his laptop, Kit followed the stairs up to the control tower.

Nigel sat at the desk, wearing a pink roll-neck sweater and a sports jacket, looking calm, holding a mobile phone to his ear. Elton leaned against the wall, dressed in a tan trench coat with the collar turned up. He had a big canvas bag at his feet. Daisy slumped on a chair, heavy boots on the windowsill. She wore tight-fitting gloves of light tan suede that looked incongruously ladylike.

Nigel spoke into the phone in his soft London voice. “It's snowing quite heavily here, but the forecast says the worst of the storm will pass us by . . . Yeah, you will be able to fly tomorrow morning, no problem . . . We'll be here well before ten . . . I'll be in the control tower, I'll talk to you as you come in . . . There won't be any trouble, so long as you've got the money, all of it, in fifties, as agreed.”

The talk of money gave Kit a shiver of excitement. Three hundred thousand pounds, in his hands, in twelve hours and a few minutes. True, he would have to give most of it to Daisy immediately, but he would keep fifty thousand. He wondered how much room fifty grand in fifty-pound notes would take up. Could he keep it in his pockets? He should have brought a briefcase . . .

“Thank
you,
” Nigel was saying. “Goodbye.” He turned around. “What-ho, Kit. You're bang on time.”

Kit said, “Who was on the phone—our buyer?”

“His pilot. He'll be arriving by helicopter.”

Kit frowned. “What will his flight plan say?”

“That he's taking off from Aberdeen and landing in London. No one
will know that he made an unscheduled stop at the Inverburn Flying School.”

“Good.”

“I'm glad you approve,” Nigel said with a touch of sarcasm. Kit constantly questioned him about his areas of responsibility, worried that Nigel, though experienced, was not as educated or as intelligent as he. Nigel answered his questions with an affectation of amusement, obviously feeling that Kit, as an amateur, ought to trust him.

Elton said, “Let's get dragged up, shall we?” He took from his bag four sets of overalls with “Hibernian Telecom” printed on the back. They all climbed into them.

Kit said to Daisy, “The gloves look odd with the overalls.”

“Too bad,” she said.

Kit stared at her for a few moments, then dropped his gaze. She was trouble, and he wished she were not coming tonight. He was scared of her, but he also hated her, and he was determined to put her down, both to establish his authority and by way of revenge for what she had done to him that morning. There was going to be a clash before long, and he both feared it and longed for it.

Next, Elton handed out faked identity cards that said “Hibernian Telecom Field Maintenance Team.” Kit's card bore a photograph of an older man who looked nothing like him. The man in the picture had black hair that grew halfway over his ears in a style that had never been fashionable in Kit's lifetime, plus a heavy Zapata mustache and glasses.

Elton reached into his bag yet again and handed Kit a black wig, a black mustache, and a pair of heavy-framed glasses with tinted lenses. He also gave him a hand mirror and a small tube of glue. Kit glued the mustache to his upper lip and put on the wig. His own hair was mid-brown and cut fashionably short. Looking in the mirror, he was satisfied that the disguise altered his appearance radically. Elton had done a good job.

Kit trusted Elton. His humor covered a ruthless efficiency. He would do whatever was necessary to finish the job, Kit thought.

Tonight Kit planned to avoid anyone among the guards who had
been employed at the Kremlin when he was there. However, if he had to speak to any of them, he felt confident they would not recognize him. He had taken off his distinctive jewelry, and he would change his voice.

Elton also had disguises for Nigel, Daisy, and himself. They were not known to anyone at the Kremlin, so they were in no danger of being recognized immediately; but later the security guards would describe the intruders to the police, and the disguises would ensure that those descriptions bore no relation to their actual faces.

Nigel also had a wig, Kit saw. Nigel's own hair was sandy-colored and short, but his wig was mid-gray and chin-length, making the casually elegant Londoner look like an aging Beatle. He also had glasses with unfashionably large frames.

Daisy had a long blond wig over her shaved head. Tinted contact lenses turned her eyes from brown to bright blue. She was even more hideous than usual. Kit had often wondered about her sex life. He had once met someone who claimed to have slept with her, but all the man would say about it was “I've still got the bruises.” As Kit looked, she removed the steel rings that pierced her eyebrow, her nose, and her lower lip. She looked only a little less weird.

Elton's own disguise was the most subtle. All he had was a set of false teeth that gave him an overbite—but he looked completely different. The handsome dude had gone, and in his place was a nerd.

Finally, he gave them all baseball caps with “Hibernian Telecom” printed on them. “Most of those security cameras are placed high,” he explained. “A cap with a long peak will make sure they don't get a good shot of your face.”

They were ready. There was a moment of silence while they looked at one another. Then Nigel said, “Showtime.”