Brian Freemantle - Two Women

‘She’s instructed the family lawyer, Burt Elliott, too.’

‘I’m still listening.’

‘I had another call,’ continued Davis. ‘Guy said he was a lawyer, representing clients for whom George Northcote worked exclusively but to whom John had written severance letters. I asked around, among the partners. No one knew anything about it…’

‘You got names?’ interrupted Hanlan, anxiously.

‘I finally asked Hilda Bennett, John’s PA. She wrote the letters and kept file copies, obviously. We’ve got the names of all five, all registered in Grand Cayman. It was doing that which took the time.’

‘Who’s the guy who called?’

‘Wouldn’t give a name. Told me I’d understand when we met.’

‘When?’

‘Ten thirty tomorrow morning. I put it back until then because I thought you’d want to know. Be here, waiting.’

Hanlan didn’t respond for several moments. ‘I think I owe you an apology.’

‘Yes,’ said Davis. ‘I think you do.’

It was late, past nine, before Charlie Pedtrie got back from Trenton, believing he had made all the arrangements possible with the Cavalcante consigliere and anxious to meet those of the other four New York Families within the hour. But Stanley Burcher had to come first. There had been telephone conversations with the other consiglieri from Trenton and none of them were happy with what Petrie was going to order but no one had been able to come up with an alternative that was better to get back what was in Citibank.

The slight, self-effacing lawyer was waiting patiently in the familiar Algonquin lounge, the brandy snifter beside the coffee the only thing out of the ordinary for this most ordinary-looking of men.

Petrie ordered brandy for himself, needing it, and said: ‘Well?’

‘Fixed, for tomorrow morning.’ Burcher was frightened, of too many things to know precisely about what. Of the man sitting opposite and what the people he represented could and would do to him. Also, for the first time in his life, of openly putting himself forward as an emissary of such people. The urge to run, to escape from them and from what might happen to him, had grown since he’d spoken to the Northcote lawyer until now it was a knot, something he could feel, deep inside him.

‘Why couldn’t you go today?’ demanded Petrie.

‘He couldn’t make today. I’m approaching him, remember?’

Petrie hesitated. He didn’t want to frighten further the obviously already frightened man but it would be ridiculous sending him in unprepared. He said: ‘There’s a complication.’

‘What?’ demanded Burcher, brandy bowl suspended in front of him.

‘Alice Belling somehow snatched Jane Carver… got the Carver woman to go with her. I don’t know how. They’re together, somewhere in the Catskills.’

For several moments Burcher’s mind refused to assimilate what he was being told and what the consequences were. Then he said: ‘But there’s no point… no purpose in my seeing the Northcote lawyer. Even if he accepted my argument about returning property no longer theirs to keep, Jane Carver is the only person who could legally get it out of her husband’s personal deposit box.’

‘I want you to make the meeting,’ insisted Petrie. ‘We’ve got to be ready.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘We didn’t know there was a relationship between the two women,’ said Petrie. ‘There obviously is and they obviously know what’s in the box. The FBI are looking for them, but for kidnap, according to conversations we’ve intercepted. We’ve got some inside tracks. We’re going to end this Thelma and Louise shit by tomorrow. Maybe even tonight. We know the car they’re driving, the plate number even. We get them, we hold Alice while Jane co-operates, meets the lawyer you’re going to meet and gets our stuff back.’

‘What about the FBI?’

‘Alice Belling is our insurance the FBI don’t get told, by anyone, that Jane’s back until we’ve got our stuff. When we’ve got that, all the Feds have is a kidnap that’s nothing to do with us. No proof of anything else.’

‘What’s Alice Belling going to tell them?’

‘Nothing,’ said Petrie. ‘Alice Belling isn’t going to tell anyone anything. She won’t be able to. Neither will Jane Carver, after she’s done what she’s told.’

It was madness, Burcher decided. He didn’t want to get involved in madness.

Neither of them undressed nor got beneath the covers, reluctant to have the sheets anywhere around them. Both spread their jackets over their pillows to keep their faces away from the physical contact and there wasn’t much talk after the near argument that erupted when they’d got back to the cabin, Alice now demanding that they go at once against Jane’s insistence that they were staying.

‘I need time to think… to think about everything,’ was Jane’s repeated refusal.

‘Please, Jane! We’ve had this conversation!’

‘The morning will be soon enough. I’m the one with the car keys, remember?’

Now, in the darkness, Alice’s feelings switchbacked again. There was, she conceded, a peculiar, womb-like comfort in being in a place even as disgusting as this instead of outside in the unknown blackness of the night, hunted by the law and the lawless. The morning would be soon enough. And she was exhausted, not just from this day but from all the days – how many days? – that had gone before. In a surprising self-revelation, Alice admitted to herself that she was content for Jane to make the decisions, for the moment at least. Maybe, even, that Jane was the stronger, more forceful personality. There was only one thing she wanted to do now, was determined to do now, and tired though she was she was going to do it now, although she was sure she already knew. She wanted to feel the excitement, the euphoria. And to be equal with Jane? The question intruded abruptly, surprising Alice. That was a jealous question. And she wasn’t jealous of Jane.

Alice lay for a long time, waiting for Jane to go to sleep before telling herself there was no need for Jane to be asleep. Why shouldn’t Jane be awake when she went to the bathroom? Alice didn’t put the bedroom light on, though, feeling her way to where she knew the door to be, closing and bolting it behind her. There was more black scurrying when she turned the bathroom light on and she flinched away, shuddering. She’d never imagined such filthy places existed: were allowed to exist by sanitation authorities. Not much longer: just a few hours.

The booklet instructions were very simple – illustrated even – and there was a specimen cup, the need for which was obvious but which she had difficulty filling, so she had thoroughly to wash her contaminated hands afterwards. Alice’s fingers were shaking as she immersed the double-windowed, absorbent tester tube, brown for no, blue for yes. The blue was very bright, much brighter than she’d expected, and at once she thought of the symbolism and thought how fitting – how right – it would be if John’s baby was a son, the heir he would have wanted.

Alice flushed away what could be dispersed and returned what couldn’t to the pharmacy bag and carefully carried it back into the darkened room to put beneath her jacket on the pillow. And then, even more carefully, lay on her back with her arms wrapped around herself, low and protectively around herself because she had so much to protect now. She was going to have John’s baby! John’s own, real, biological baby! To take with her, to love and to guard and to raise to be the most perfect child there was ever likely to be and whom one day she’d tell all there was to tell about its most perfect father.

Alice became aware of Jane’s heavy breathing from the adjoining bed, reminding her of her concern at Jane’s delaying insistences. Jane was going to do something stupid: try to protect her father’s name and John’s name and the Northcote firm’s future and risk ending up dead. And not just risk herself. Her baby now.