Bernard Cornwell - Wildtrack

Here she was the heiress married to the show star, while in America she’d just have been another little rich girl.”

“I heard she was rather a sweet girl,” I said as innocently as I could.

“Sweet?” Angela almost spat the word. “She was unbelievably selfish. She was a monster! I always thought Tony was terrified of her, though he denies it.”

I thought how Bannister clearly fell for very strong women. “She was a very good sailor,” I defended the dead.

“That’s not necessarily a recommendation, is it?” I smiled, rolled off the bed, and walked to the window. I had been embarrassed at first because of the scars on my back, but Angela had laughed at the embarrassment. Now I stood and stared down at the river. The tide was rising, swirling to cover the mudflats and lift the moored tenders on the far bank. “Was Nadeznha going to leave him?” I asked.

“I don’t know.” Angela frowned. “Tony hasn’t said much, but he wouldn’t. I mean, it would have been a terrible blow to his pride if she’d walked out. Marrying her was a great coup, after all. But he’s sort of hinted at it. He thinks she was having an affair, but I don’t know who with. He gets angry if I talk about it now.”

“Does he often get angry?”

“Only with people he thinks he can bully. He’s a very insecure man.”

I leaned my backside on the sill and watched her angular body on the rumpled sheet. Her unbound hair hung to the base of her spine. The bedclothes, all but for the bottom sheet, had fallen in a heap on the carpet. It was time, I thought, to delve into yet another layer of truth on this wet afternoon. “Do you know what people say about Nadeznha’s death?”

She looked up at me. “I know, Nick.”

“And?”

She shrugged. “No.”

“No, impossible? No, he didn’t do it? No, you’re not saying anything?”

She stared down at the sheet for a long time. “I don’t think he’s got the guts to kill someone. Killing someone must be horrible.

Unless you’re so angry that you don’t know what you’re doing. Or in self-defence, perhaps?” She shrugged. “You must know, Nick.

Aren’t you the expert?”

“Good God, no.”

“The Falklands, I mean.”

“It wasn’t the same. It wasn’t easy, either.” I thought about it.

“Afterwards is the worst, when you’re clearing up. I mean, it’s one thing to pull a trigger when you know the bastard is pulling his, but it’s quite different when you see his body a few hours later. I remember there was one who looked just like a fellow I used to play rugby with.”

“Was it really bad?” she asked, and I heard a trace of her television producer’s interest in the question. She was wondering whether I would talk like this on her film.

“Just mucky,” I said.

She heard the evasion and made a face at me. “But could you murder someone in cold blood? Someone you’d loved? Could you murder Melissa?”

“Good Lord, no!”

“What makes you think Tony could, then?”

“I don’t know what I think.” I paused. “Could Mulder?”

“For God’s sake, Nick!” So far she had patiently indulged my interest in the subject, but now, in a flash of the old Angela, she became annoyed. “You think Tony would keep Mulder around if he’d murdered Nadeznha? Tony keeps Mulder as a bodyguard. He knows Kassouli has threatened to stop him winning the St Pierre. Why do you think we won’t take any strangers into the crew?”

“But you asked me.”

She ground the cigarette into the ashtray. “We know what kennel you crawled from, Nick. You’re not one of Kassouli’s people. He’s trying to make you into one, though, isn’t he?” The question was a challenge.

“Yes,” I said honestly, “but he didn’t succeed. And I’m sorry I asked you all these horrid questions about Bannister.”

“Tony isn’t a murderer,” she said flatly.

“I’m sorry,” I said again.

“Don’t even speculate about it,” she said firmly, and with another trace of impatience. “The last thing I want is for the gutter press to start on Tony’s last marriage. Can you imagine the mud they’d sling if they thought he might have murdered Nadeznha?” I could imagine it, and I’d already triggered the process by talking to Micky Harding. Now, however truthful I wanted to be with Angela, I did not think I had better mention Harding to her.

She lit another cigarette.

“You smoke too much,” I said.

“Piss off, Nick.” It was said gently enough; nothing more than irritation at being criticized.

“And can I give you some more advice?” I said.

“Try me.”

“Don’t let Bannister go on the St Pierre. Keep him ashore. I don’t know what Kassouli plans, but it’s more than just preventing him from winning the St Pierre.”

She looked at me for a long time. “He wants revenge for his daughter’s death?”

“I think so, yes.” I wondered why I was being so solicitous of a man who was now my rival for this girl. Good old chivalry.

“Male pride. Old bull, young bull.” Angela swung herself off the bed and walked to the window beside me. The thick clouds were bringing on an early dusk. “Tony’s very proud, Nick, and he won’t back down. He’s told the whole world that he’s going to win the St Pierre this year. He wants to become a hero for Britain on television; he wants to be the man who tweaked the noses of the French. Bloody hell, Nick, he wants a knighthood! Other telly people have got it, so Tony wants one, and he thinks that winning the St Pierre will help.”

“So you’ll be Lady Bannister?”

She smiled, but didn’t answer, and I thought how she would love the title.

“Don’t let him go,” I said. “Does he know how determined Kassouli is?”

“Would you give up a dream just because you were threatened?”

“It would depend on who was doing the threatening,” I said fervently. “I’m much more likely to repent for a Soviet armoured division than for the Salvation Army.”

“He won’t give it up, Nick.” She took my arm and leaned against me. “That’s why I want you to go with him. Because you’ll be another bodyguard.”

“Not for the ratings?” I asked.

“That, too, you fool.” She laughed, then threw her cigarette out of the window.

I fell over.

It had not happened for days, but suddenly my right leg had switched itself off and I lurched sideways, grabbed the windowsill, then sprawled heavily on the thick carpet. Panic coursed through me. I felt stupid, frightened, and suddenly very helpless. The pain was in my back again; not the usual dull pain that I had learned to live with, but a sudden streak of hard and frightening agony.

“Nick? Nick!” There was genuine alarm in Angela’s voice.

“It’s OK.” I had to force my voice to sound calm. I tried to stand, and couldn’t. I heard myself hiss with the pain, then I managed to roll over, which helped, and I pulled myself across the floor towards the bed.

“What is it, Nick?” Angela tried to lift me.

“Every now and then the leg crumples. It’ll be all right in a minute.” I was hiding my fear. I’d thought that because the leg had stood up to my American trip then perhaps the sudden weakness had mended itself, but suddenly, and foolishly, I was a helpless cripple again. I managed to haul myself on to the rucked bed where I lay with eyes closed as I tried to subdue the pain.

“You never mentioned it before,” Angela accused me.

“I told you, it’ll be all right in a minute.” I forced myself to turn over, then began to pound my knee in an attempt to force pain and feeling back into the joint.

“Have you seen a doctor?” Angela asked.

“I’ve seen millions of doctors.”