Jeffrey Archer - False Impression

Anna left her apartment to set out on her morning run just before six A.M. Sam rushed from behind his desk to open the door for her — a Cheshire cat grin hadn’t left his face from the moment she’d arrived back.

Anna wondered at what point Jack would catch up with her. She had to admit, he’d been in her thoughts a lot since they had parted yesterday, and she already hoped their relationship might stray beyond a professional interest.

“Beware,” Tina had warned her over supper. “Once he’s got what he wants, he’ll move on, and it isn’t necessarily sex that he’s after.”

Pity, she remembered thinking.

“Fenston loves the Van Gogh,” Tina assured her. “He’s given the painting pride of place on the wall behind his desk.”

In fact, Tina had been forthcoming about everything Fenston and Leapman had been up to during the past ten days. However, despite gentle probing, hints, and well-placed questions, by the time they left the restaurant a couple of hours later Anna was no nearer to finding out why Fenston had such a hold over her.

Anna couldn’t help remembering that the last time she’d run around Central Park was on the morning of the eleventh. The dark gray cloud may have finally dispersed, but there were several other reminders of that dreadful day, not least the two words on everyone’s lips: Ground Zero . She put aside the horrors of that day when she spotted Jack jogging on the spot under Artists’ Gate.

“Been waiting long, Stalker?” Anna asked, as she strode past him and up around the pond.

“No,” he replied, once he’d caught up. “I’ve already been around twice, so I’m treating this as a cooling-down session.”

“Cooling down already, are we?” said Anna, as she accelerated away. She knew she wouldn’t be able to maintain that pace for long and it was only a few seconds before he was back striding by her side.

“Not bad,” said Jack, “but how long can you keep it up?”

“I thought that was a male problem,” Anna said, still trying to set the pace. She decided that her only hope would be to distract him. She waited until the Frick came in sight.

“Name five artists on display in that museum,” she demanded, hoping his lack of knowledge would compensate for her lack of speed.

“Bellini, Mary Cassatt, Renoir, Rembrandt, and two Holbeins — More and Cromwell.”

“Yes, but which Cromwell?” asked Anna, panting.

“Thomas, not Oliver,” said Jack.

“Not bad, Stalker,” admitted Anna.

“You can blame it on my father,” said Jack. “Whenever he was out on patrol on a Sunday, my mother would take me to a gallery or a museum. I thought it was a waste of time, until I fell in love.”

“Who did you fall in love with?” asked Anna, as they jogged up Pilgrim’s Hill.

“Rossetti, or, to be more accurate, his mistress, Jane Burden.”

“Scholars are divided on whether he even slept with her,” said Anna. “And her husband — William Morris — admired Rossetti so much that they don’t even think he would have objected.”

“Foolish man,” said Jack.

“Are you still in love with Jane?” asked Anna.

“No, I’ve moved on since then. I gave up the pre-Raphaelites for the real thing, and started falling for women whose breasts often end up behind their ears.”

“So you must have been spending a lot of your time in MoMA.”

“Several blind dates,” admitted Jack, “but my mother doesn’t approve.”

“Who does she think you should be dating?”

“She’s old-fashioned, so anyone called Mary who’s a virgin, but I’m working on her.”

“Are you working on anything else?”

“Like what?” asked Jack.

“Like what R stands for,” said Anna, almost out of breath.

“You tell me,” said Jack.

“Romania would be my bet,” said Anna, the words puffing out intermittently

“You should have joined the FBI,” said Jack, slowing down.

“You’d worked it out already,” said Anna.

“No,” admitted Jack. “A guy called Abe worked it out for me.”

“And?”

“And both of you were right.”

“So where is the Romanian Club?”

“In a run-down neighborhood in Queens,” replied Jack.

“And what did you find when you opened the box?”

“I can’t be absolutely certain,” replied Jack.

“Don’t play games, Stalker, just tell me what was in the box.”

“About two million dollars.”

“Two million?” repeated Anna in disbelief.

“Well, it might not be quite that much, but it certainly was enough for my boss to drop everything, stake out the building, and cancel my leave.”

“What sort of person keeps two million in cash hidden in a safety deposit box in Queens?” asked Anna.

“A person who can’t risk opening a bank account anywhere in the world.”

“Krantz,” said Anna.

“So now it’s your turn. Did anything come out of your dinner with Tina?”

“I thought you’d never ask,” replied Anna, and covered another hundred yards before she said, “Fenston thinks the latest addition to his collection is magnificent. But, more important, when Tina took in his morning coffee, there was a copy of The New York Times on his desk, and it was open at page seventeen.”

“Obviously not the sports section,” said Jack.

“No, international,” said Anna, as she extracted the article from her pocket and passed it over to Jack.

“Is this a ploy to see if I can keep up with you while I read?”

“No, it’s a ploy to find out if you can read, Stalker, and I can always slow down, because I know you haven’t been able to keep up with me in the past,” said Anna.

Jack read the headline and almost came to a halt as they ran past the lake. It was some time before he spoke again. “Sharp girl, your friend Tina.”

“And she gets sharper,” said Anna. “She interrupted a conversation Fenston was having with Leapman, and overheard him say, ‘Do you still have the second key?’ She didn’t understand the significance of it at the time, but—”

“I take back everything I said about her,” said Jack. “She’s on our team.”

“No, Stalker, she’s on my team,” said Anna, accelerating through Strawberry Fields as she always did for the last half mile, with Jack striding by her side.

“This is where I leave you,” said Anna, once they reached Artists’ Gate. She checked her watch and smiled: Eleven minutes, forty-eight seconds.

“Brunch?”

“Can’t, sadly,” said Anna. “Meeting up with an old friend from Christie’s, trying to find out if they’ve got any openings.”

“Dinner?”

“I’ve got tickets for the Rauschenberg at the Whitney. If you want to join me, I’ll be there around six, Stalker.”

She ran away before he could reply.

Leapman had selected a Sunday because it was the one day of the week Fenston didn’t go into the office, although he’d already called him three times that day.

He sat alone in his apartment eating a TV dinner, and going over his plan, until he was certain nothing could go wrong. Tomorrow, and all the rest of his tomorrows, he would dine in a restaurant, without having to wait for Fenston.

When he’d eaten every last scrap, he returned to his bedroom and stripped down to his underpants. He pulled open a drawer that contained the sports gear he needed for this particular exercise. He put on a T-shirt, shorts, and a baggy, gray tracksuit that teenagers wouldn’t even have believed their parents once wore, and finally donned a pair of white socks and white gym shoes. Leapman didn’t look at himself in the mirror. He walked back across the room, fell on his knees, and reached under the bed to pull out a large gym bag that had the handle of a squash racket poking out of it. He was now dressed and ready for his irregular exercise. All he needed was the key and a packet of cigarettes.