Charles Cumming - The hidden man

Mark came towards her now and, for the first time in three days, walked right past Tracy’s vehicle. She had to pretend to apply make-up in the rear-view mirror as he headed south for the tube. Then it was another two-hour wait for the postman, finishing the Grisham as the minutes crawled by. At 10.05, a woman wearing a dark-blue Post Office uniform with a red canvas bag turned into the avenue and began distributing letters, working more quickly than the overweight blob, who must have been off sick. Four minutes later she left her trolley at the gate of Mark’s house and took three letters up to the door, pushing them through the letter box and then turning backto the road. When she was out of sight, Tracy moved quickly. Reaching into the backseat for her clipboard and charity ID, she stepped out of the car, made a brief check of the surrounding doors and windows and walked across the street. She was inside Mark’s house within four seconds — her quickest time so far — and closed the door behind her with a soft bump. An airmail envelope had floated out about four feet into the room. Flipping it over, she read the return address on the reverse side:

Robert Bone US Post Office/Box 650 Rt 12 °Cornish New Hampshire 03745 United States of America

Bingo. She would get it to Taylor by noon. A quick glance through the front door’s fish-eye lens and Tracy was out on the street. Job done. With any luck, she’d be home by three.

It wasn’t there.

Ben rummaged through the contents of the shoebox where he had hidden the original copy of Bone’s letter, but there was no sign of it. Tapes, random playing cards, paper clips, packets of gum, but no trace of an airmail envelope bearing Bone’s handwriting. Just two days before, Ben had come home, made a photocopy of the letter at a local news agent and placed the original for safe keeping in his studio. Alice could not have taken it because she would not have known where to look. And yet somebody had been through the box.

He shouted down stairs:

‘Have you seen the letter?’

Alice took a long time to reply. It was Saturday morning and she was reading the papers in bed.

‘What’s that?’

‘The original copy. The letter from Robert Bone. Not the one in the car.’

Again, a long delay. Then, tiredly, ‘No.’

He walked down stairs and went into their bedroom.

‘You sure? You didn’t send it to your friend in Customs and Excise, the one who was going to check on Kostov?’

‘I’m sure.’

Alice looked puffy and tired, trying to lock herself into the privacy of a weekend and not wanting to be disturbed. Ben had brought her a cup of coffee at ten and barely received a word of thanks. He was trying to make an effort with her but she seemed distant and cold. In the past, Saturday mornings had been almost consciously set aside for sex, but even that was a chore now.

‘I’m going out,’ he said.

‘Where?’

‘Thought I might go for a walk round Regent’s Park, maybe take a look at the roof on the British Museum, go to an exhibition or something.’

‘All day?’ Alice asked.

‘Probably, yeah.’

She had told him that she was having lunch with a friend and afterwards going into the Standard. Another Saturday apart. Another weekend when they did separate things.

‘Did Mark ever call you back?’ she asked.

‘No. I’ve left twenty messages, sent a dozen emails. He must be ignoring me.’

Peeling a satsuma in bed, Alice said, ‘Now why would he do that?’

The tone of the question suggested that she could well imagine why.

‘I have no idea,’ Ben replied. ‘I’m trying to make it up to him.’

Didn’t she realize that? Hadn’t she seen that he was trying to move on? Or was it simply that she didn’t care?

‘I mean, maybe he’s busy,’ Alice suggested. ‘Maybe his phone’s not working. Maybe he just wants to be left alone.’

‘Well that’s great, isn’t it? I have a lot of stuff I need to talk to him about and he won’t fucking get in touch.’

‘Relax,’ she said, an instruction that had the effect of making Ben feel even more on edge. ‘Where do they say he is when you call Libra?’

‘They say he’s around. That’s all they seem to know. That he’s around or in a meeting and can they take a message? And his mobile just rings and rings. I don’t even get to say anything.’

Alice smiled as juice from the satsuma dropped on to the sheets.

‘So, as I was saying, I’m going out,’ Ben told her. ‘Thought I might take the car.’

He picked up a bottle of mineral water from the floor, took a slug and scratched at his neck. Alice said, ‘OK,’ then, out of nowhere: ‘By the way, I had lunch with Sebastian yesterday.’

The water caught in Ben’s throat. He had been walking out of the room.

‘Sebastian?’

He knew exactly who she was talking about.

‘That’s right. Sebastian Roth.’

Why was she telling him this now? To start a fight? To assuage her guilt? To bury the news in everyday chit-chat in the hope that it would just go away? Alice never did anything without first exactly calculating its impact.

‘How did that happen?’

‘He invited me.’

‘He invited you?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Just you? Nobody else?’

‘Just me.’ She was pretending to read the paper.

‘And how was he?’

‘Great.’

Ben moved across to the window and stared out at Elgin Crescent. He was aware of Alice chewing elaborately.

‘So did you get a story out of him? I mean, that was the point of the meeting, right? For the paper?’

‘Sure.’

‘Well, go on then.’

‘Go on what?’

‘Well, what was the scoop? Why else would you bring it up? There must be a point to this announcement.’

It depressed him that they had so quickly descended into yet another argument.

‘There’s no point to it,’ she said. ‘You’re making too much of a harmless piece of information. I just thought that you’d be interested.’

‘Well, I am.’

‘Well, good.’ Alice sighed theatrically and let the newspaper flap on to the bed. ‘We talked about your father, actually. Then we talked about Seb’s new restaurant…’

‘ Seb? ’ Ben said sarcastically. ‘You call him “ Seb ”?’ Alice ignored this.

‘He wants me to do a feature,’ she said. ‘A big interview for the paper.’

‘I didn’t know Libra were opening a restaurant.’

‘Well, there you go. That’s why we need journalists in the world, Ben, to keep people like you informed. Anyway, it’s not Libra officially. It’s just him and his lawyer.’

‘Tom Macklin?’

‘Right.’

‘How come Mark never said anything?’

‘Well, maybe because he doesn’t know anything about it.’ Alice threw back the duvet. Her legs looked supple and warm and Ben suddenly wanted to touch them. Her pale naked body breezed past him as she said, ‘Maybe he would have said something if you two ever spoke,’ and went into the bathroom.

‘Did you mention anything to Roth about Bone’s letter?’

‘Christ no.’ She was coming back into the room. ‘You told me to keep quiet about that. I haven’t told a soul.’

He scanned her face for the lie as he said, ‘Good.’ For all Ben knew, Alice and Roth could have skipped lunch, booked themselves into the Charlotte Street Hotel and fucked from noon till six. That was the extent of the trust he held for his wife. He heard the lock click on the bathroom door and sat down on the bed. There were shards of satsuma skin hidden in the white folds of the duvet.

‘Well, I’ll be off then,’ he said, shouting through the door.

‘Fine,’ Alice called back.