Brian Freemantle - Two Women

‘You’re right,’ said Jane. ‘I don’t know. So tell me about that, too. All of it, because I can’t be hurt or betrayed any more, any worse, than I already have been.’

But she was, her face twisting as if she were in genuine pain when Alice told her everything. Alice held nothing back but conscious of Jane’s stricken look said at the end: ‘I don’t believe… John didn’t believe… that your father did it willingly, in the beginning. John was sure he was tricked… cheated… and from then on was blackmailed into carrying on…’

‘And John tried to face them down… believing as he did that Dad and Janice had been murdered he still tried to face them down…?’

‘Yes,’ said Alice, knowing the other woman’s need. ‘That’s how brave John was.’

‘But he told you, not me,’ remembered Jane, stronger-voiced.

‘How could he have told you?’ pleaded Alice.

‘I didn’t believe you, not any of it, before. I actually thought you might be mad, although I didn’t think you were going to harm me. But I believe you now. All of it…’ Jane stopped, her voice catching. ‘I cried for Dad but I didn’t cry for John, not properly. The drugs. And now I don’t think I can cry, for either of them…’

She did though, so suddenly that Alice jumped at the wail and came forward in her ugly chair, watching helplessly as the sobs racked through Jane as they had racked through her, and finally Alice got up and went to the other woman. At the first touch Jane stiffened and went to pull away but didn’t and then she let herself come into Alice’s embracing arm and Alice began crying, too, and both women sat on the hard bed, holding each other, both weeping for the same man.

Initially there was an embarrassment at their holding each other, supporting each other, a few moments, once they recovered and stopped crying, of moving awkwardly around the room, neither knowing what to say, how to say it. So neither at first said anything.

Alice broke the impasse. ‘They’ll say I kidnapped you.’

‘You did.’

They both sniggered a laugh, although still awkwardly.

Alice said: ‘Don’t hate me.’

Jane said: ‘I don’t know what to feel – how to feel – right now. I don’t feel anything, about anyone. I don’t think I know how to hate.’

‘We both loved John. He loved both of us.’

‘I don’t know what to say to that, either. I don’t understand it. Maybe I never will.’

‘That’s how it is,’ Alice insisted, wishing it hadn’t sounded so flip.

‘I suppose I know that’s how it was. I still don’t understand it.’

‘Do you understand – accept – that we could both be killed, if we don’t get protection?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘Jane, you can’t suppose so. You know so, surely!’

‘I…’ Jane began, then corrected herself. ‘Yes, I know.’

She had to get back to the cabin: get John’s picture, remembered Alice. ‘Why did you drive away like that?’

‘I told you. I didn’t believe what you were saying: thought you were mad. These days have been mad. I don’t know why I did it, at that moment. I just did. I don’t like being manipulated. Everyone was manipulating me, telling me what to do, what pills to take, like I was a child.’

‘We’ve got to go back. Get safe.’

‘They can come for us here.’

‘There are things I want.’ Only one thing, the thing she couldn’t do – wouldn’t do – without. Her only physical, tangible memory.

‘We drove for hours! I don’t even know where the hell we are!’

‘We’ll go back tomorrow.’

‘You want to stay here?’

‘No one knows we’re here. That’s what you said.’

‘It’s filthy! Disgusting!’ said Jane.

‘No one knows we’re here,’ repeated Alice. ‘No one would expect us to be in a place like this. So no one will look for us in a place like this.’

Jane looked around the stained, night-darkening room. ‘No. No one would,’ she agreed and sniggered again, this time in head-shaking disbelief.

‘Tomorrow?’ prompted Alice.

‘To what, after that?’

‘I don’t know,’ admitted Alice. ‘Some sort of life.’

They were still vaguely red-eyed but they’d washed their faces and combed their hair and touched up their lipstick, which was the only make-up either carried in their bags. They were the instant focus of the truckers in the suddenly hushed adjoining diner and to avoid it they took a booth and shrugged off the two direct, leering approaches to their table. When the waitress with drooping breasts, who clearly regarded them as competition, tried to deliver two unordered whiskies from a third hopeful, Alice said: ‘Take them back and say thanks. My friend and I don’t need anyone else but each other, OK?’

‘They’ll want to save you from yourselves,’ predicted the waitress, relieved.

‘Tell them to go fuck themselves. It’s fun,’ said Alice.

Jane looked down to cover the smile. As the girl left Jane said: ‘You know your way around this sort of place?’

‘I go to the movies a lot.’

‘You would, I suppose, with time on your hands.’

‘Jane, you’re allowed any sort of shot you want. I can’t think of anything more to say than I’ve already said. Let’s just get through tonight, tomorrow, until we get back to where they’re waiting. Then you’ll never have to see me, ever again.’

‘It’ll ruin the firm, won’t it?’ suddenly demanded Jane. ‘Ruin my father’s reputation. That’s what both of them, Dad and John, were trying to prevent. That’s what you said.’

‘I know what I said,’ acknowledged Alice, concerned at the conversation. ‘I also told you John was convinced your father was murdered. And Janice. There’s no way other than going to the Bureau.’

‘We should call them.’

‘We should,’ agreed Alice, relaxing.

‘Not now, not right away. I want to think.’

‘Jane, there really is nothing to think about.’

‘Later,’ insisted the woman.

The now friendly waitress returned, with iced water and place settings. She said: ‘I got nothing against guys like you, OK?’

‘Thanks,’ said Alice.

The woman said: ‘Take the meat loaf. It’s fresh. I wouldn’t risk anything else.’

‘I’ll have meat loaf,’ said Alice.

As Jane nodded acceptance too, she said: ‘John didn’t like meat loaf.’

Which was why she’d never made it for him, remembered Alice.

‘When?’ demanded Gene Hanlan.

‘Two or three hours ago,’ admitted Geoffrey Davis.

‘Two or three hours! What the hell…?’

‘Things happened,’ said the Northcote lawyer. ‘Maybe it wasn’t even two or three hours…’

‘She’s under threat,’ stopped Hanlan. ‘Serious, physical threat. People got to the cabin where she was before us. Wrecked it like they wrecked Litchfield. We don’t get her soon, like immediately, she’s dead. So where is she?’

‘She didn’t say.’

‘For fuck’s sake!’

‘Hear me out…’

‘I don’t want to hear you out. I want you to hear me out. You’re a lawyer, doesn’t matter criminal or civil. You know what I’m saying? We’ve got a big-time, major investigation here. We lose getting Jane back – lose Jane – I’m going to charge you with wilful obstruction of justice and anything else I can think of and I’m going to recommend the Bureau move for your disbarment. You hear what I’m saying?’

There was a pause from the other end before Davis said, calmly: ‘Now you’re going to hear what I’m saying?’

‘What?’

‘She’s instructed me to file against any Bureau application for access to John Carver’s estate or private affairs.’

‘She told me she would do that.’